AN INTRODUCTORY TOOLKIT FOR SOCIAL PRACTICE
Samantha Rausch
This study concentrates on how artists and educators construct social engagement with art and place in relation to the implementation of social practice. The emergence of social practice is influential for those who work in community programs, museums, artists, and art educators. My interest in this research arose from my own personal art practice. Through my own art-making, I was able to inform my identity, and I wanted to collaborate with others to do the same. I wanted to work in community endeavors that use the arts to build and sustain a community identity, and I wanted to have meaningful art-making experiences with others. This led to the emergence of my research problem, as I wanted to explore how social practice can function within various art education contexts, and perhaps find new ways for implementation and navigating social practice works, as well as a more indepth understanding of the role in which educators and artists work within these contexts.
The images used are all my original drawings, collages, and photographs.
SPECIAL THANK YOU TO:
CHRISTINE WOYWOD-VEETTIL
KIM COSIER
JENNIFER JOHUNG
RINA KUNDU
ŠCOPYRIGHT BY SAMANTHA H. RAUSCH, 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
RAOUL DEAL
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AN OVERVIEW
Socially engaged works being practiced in public sites for learning by art educators is critical to arts education in the future. Defining the role of socially engaged art within art education and the role of the facilitator in these practices is beneficial to art educators across the board. Socially engaged art has been recognized by artists as an area of creative practice for a considerable time and takes on a variety of forms. From Jeanne can Heeswijk’s project to turn a condemned shopping mall into a cultural center for the residents of Vlaardingen, Rotterdam (De Strip, 20012004); Mammalian Diving Reflex’s project which provided 5th and 6th grade students to give haircuts free of change in hair salons across Toronto (Haircuts by Children, 2006); Turkish artists’ collective Oda Projesi’s transformation of a 3-room apartment in Istanbul to provide a platform for projects generated by the group in cooperation with neighbors, such as children’s workshops, community picnics, and parades for children (Apartment Project, 2000-2005); Superflex’s internet TV station for
elderly residents of a Liverpool housing project (Tenantspin, 1999); or Lucy Orta’s workshops in Johannesburg to teach unemployed people new fashion skills and discuss collective solidarity (Nexus Architecture, 1997-); the field of social practice is not easily defined but lives under variety of practices including community-based art, new genre public art, dialogic art, and participatory, or collaborative art. These socially engaged art projects and activities extend beyond the creation of aesthetic art objects in attempt to construct social engagement through dialogue that incorporates artistic practices in pursuit of a more equitable or just world. Generally, artists interested in social practice create through collaboration with others to investigate and challenge issues within existing social systems that inspire debate or catalyze social exchange. With the social turn in art garnering more speed and necessity in the world today, and with its strong ties to critical pedagogy, I believe a richer understanding of social practice can provide a significant bearing on the future of arts education.
SOCIALLY ENGAGED ARTISTIC AND PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES INVOLVE EXCHANGES THAT TAKE PLACE BETWEEN PEOPLE; THE ARTWORK OPENS UP THE ENCOUNTER THROUGH DIALOGUE, DISCUSSION, AND INTER-HUMAN NEGOTIATION; AND IT INVOLVES COMING UP WITH PERCEPTIVE, EXPERIMENTAL, CRITICAL AND PARTICIPATORY FORMS OF INTERACTION (SCHLEMMER, 2016).
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The exposure of arts education classrooms to socially engaged art work undoubtedly resonates with critical educators employing critical pedagogy and social justice art education. Socially engaged art projects are more ambitious and risk-taking and directly engaged with the public realm-with the street, the open social space, the non-art community (Helguera, 2011). “These kinds of practices in a typical K-12 school may present restrictions, if institutional structures constrain the identities of teachers, their imagination, and their practices (…) engaging in practices of social justice can be high risk behavior” (Garber, 2004, p.14). Socially engaged art practices has gained traction in academia in the past years. A quick Google search on ‘Socially Engaged Art Master’s programs’ leads to programs that reach internationally from Portland State University in Oregon, National College of Art and Design in Dublin, the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, and California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Portland State’s program hosted adjunct faculty from influential people in the understanding of socially engaged art such as Shannon Jackson, Harrell Fletcher, and Pablo Helguera. Despite these strides, I believe there are still questions to be asked about what social practice means for art education. For instance, many community art educators hold similar values to a socially engaged artists because they operate within the public sphere and have similar conceptual roots within social justice and activism. Community-based art education is an approach to art education, which extends beyond the classroom into the experiences of everyday life. By starting with the local---the familiar, students become motivated to discuss art in relation to their own lives (Keller, 2014). Similarly, “most artists who produce socially engaged works are interested in creating a kind of collective art that affects the public sphere in a deep and meaningful way, not in creating a representation (…) of a social issue” (Helguera, 2011, p.7). Other similiar goals between these two practices include educating others to new forms of artmaking, encouraging participation in art making processes from community members, and expressing issues and concerns within a community through art. Because of these commonalities, there should be more critical research on the subject and role of social practice in community art settings.
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Similarly, the role of social practice within museums is complicated. Experimental work in museums has been an emergent topic of discussion among museum professionals, and a growing number of institutions have been experimenting and taking risks to develop new kinds of projects that consider the roles of art, artists, and visitors from a new perspective. “In a rapidly transforming world of social
Including the community as part of the learning environment is how social practice artists and museums can mutually benefit all aspects of a museum’s resources. media, massive open online learning, and increasing demands for active participation and collaborative engagement, museums have been faced with the challenge of redefining their public practice” (Murawski, 2013). Discourse surrounding this topic often comes in the form of engaging with different forms of exhibition or performance of socially engaged art in museum spaces. I am
also interested in the role that museums can have as convener to engage with social practice that both challenges the public to examine it critically as art while using education and community based art education strategies to do so. “How can we contend with a form that is iterative, durational, and takes place in the real world rather than art spaces? Perhaps, by creating a form of curating to match the art form.” (Grady, 2017). Schlemmer (2016)
describes social practice’s need to function within various physical spaces and in different contexts stating, “socially engaged art education comes with the recognition that art functions in many different contexts, and as a result, it requires different spaces that push the boundaries of learning even further, constituting new forms of engagement and interaction” (p.12).
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More concise findings of socially engaged practices in art education can provide insights into how it can be best implemented in art education in the future. Contemporary frameworks of art education such as community-based art education and public pedagogy have come under increasing scrutiny for not living up to the conceptual roots that shaped their civic role and ethical responsibility (Burdick, Sandlin, &
Exposure to these works allows art educators to challenge disenfranchised conceptions of the social role and political function of art. O’Malley; 2014). Art educator David Darts (2004) advocates for introducing artists into the classroom who actively engage with social justice and human rights issues to open up educative spaces to explore sociocultural, political, and historical complexities. Exposure to these works allows art educators “to challenge disenfranchised conceptions of the social role and political function of art with their students� (Darts, 2004, p. 319). My research aims to identify
how community programs, museums, and artists construct social engagement with art and place. The need for art education in public spheres outside the school system is important now more than ever, and socially engaged works being practiced in public sites for learning by art educators is critical to arts education in the future. With the social
turn in art garnering more speed and necessity in the world today, and with its strong ties to critical pedagogy, I believe a richer understanding of social practice can provide a significant bearing on the future of arts education. It has the potential to develop artists and educators into cultural workers and create change through collaboration with others.
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THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF A STUDY INCLUDES SUPPORTING THEORIES AND IDEAS SURROUNDING YOUR RESEARCH. THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THIS STUDY INCLUDES ART MOVEMENTS THAT HAVE INTERSECTIONS WITH SOCIAL PRACTICE INCLUDE ACTIVIST ART, COMMUNITY ACTIVISM, AND NEW GENRE PUBLIC ART. IT ALSO INCLUDES DEFINING SOCIAL PRACTICE AS CONTEMPORARY ART.
Perhaps the most critical movement in contemporary art history towards the growing movement of social practice was the emergence of activist art and how these efforts shift to a barely visible separation between art and politics, artist and activist. Community organizing practices of the civil rights movement resemble the practices of socially engaged artists of today. Activist art, community activism, and new genre public art have intersections with the emergence of social practice as it exists today.
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The emergence of activist art, community activism, and new genre public art all redefine how and where art can be made, including where art is exhibited, the materials and methodologies used to create artwork, and the strategies used in the creation of the art. It is important to remember that in the short history of the 1960s-2000s in contemporary Western art history artists were beginning to move freely between mediums and become more interdisciplinary. Suddenly the insistence on what ‘traditional’ practices and mediums can do-- a mode of thinking in line with modernism’s formalist aesthetics and hierarchical view of artistic mediums --grew into an influx of artists becoming interested in working within social and political issues that used an interdisciplinary toolbox of practices and mediums to express ideas. In the postmodern perspective, art no longer needs to be beautiful, representational, or realistic; have subject matter; or bear evidence of the artist’s touch (Barrett, 2008). Therefore, artists began to borrow across time and mediums to grow their
interdisciplinary art practice that was formed around their particular interests and issues they wanted to address instead of insisting on the use of one chosen media to inform how and what they were creating. The defense, or justification of socially engaged art practices, therefore, lies in opposition to modernism’s more formal sense of aesthetics (Schlemmer, 2016). The shift in the Postmodern artist’s values evolve from a Modernist’s existentialism into the socially engaged action of the here and now. Social practice “avoids […] both the modern role of the artist (as illuminated visionary) and the postmodern version of the artist (as a self-conscious critical being)” (Helguera, 2011, p. 3). Artists and educators interested in contributing to their communities, helping others, and employing the values of socially engaged artwork are focused on the efforts that can be made now, not in the far off future. The turn towards experience as an artistic medium in contemporary art also presents possibilities for art education.
The influences of Postmodernism shaped the role of the social turn in the arts today because it opened the doors for artists to explore variety of mediums, challenge ideas on what makes an art object an art object, and ultimately begin to experiment within the public sphere in new and meaningful ways.
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O’Donoghue (2015) states that a turn to experiences in art education would shift attention away from thinking about art perception solely as a practice of looking. Rather than equating art education exclusively with the production of physical objects, an experiential turn calls for art educators to imagine other ways of making that engages with others in thinking differently about making processes (O’Donoghue, 2015). Experiences collaborating in artworks can take
many forms, including the integration of traditional studio media and a variety social forms such as social activism and performance. Because of this, an emphasis on public engagement and shared authority of the piece is valued in socially engaged art. This is also perhaps one of the most difficult and critical aspects of social practice. How does an artist critically engage communities in the public sphere, and
Social practice asserts the artist as a conduit to confront social, political, and institutional issues in various mediums and experiences.
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The emergence of social practice brings many possibilities, and questions, on exhibiting new artwork that is not fully object-based and relies on the
why should they? Why is this considered artistic practice at all? If value is placed on the interactive experience of process over the physical object to facilitate the experience – how is the role of the artist any different than social worker, educator, activist? The growing movement of social art clearly emphasizes the artist as more than just maker – artists participating in the ‘social turn’ function as mediator, educator, facilitator, performer, and activist. These artists challenge the changing nature of art practices and values.
participation of people to exist. Socially engaged, community artists today consider their psychological containers to be the definition of what an artistic product or service can be. There is some inclusion of social practice that is showcased in galleries and socially engaged art that is funded by cultural institutions, but it is also a practice that may be experienced in spaces outside of institutions. The inexhaustible nature of socially engaged art and the equally complex and often paradoxical
definitions of the practice make it difficult for some to recognize as art. But it has many things in common with the art movements discussed thus far. The movement of social practice outside of the hierarchical space of the art gallery attempts to transform the practice itself into something seemingly more democratic. Whether prompted by their roles in their careers in art institutions, as public art educators, or community-based artists and activists, it is clear that socially engaged artists working to create a democratic, collaborative way of art-making face complex issues unlike public artists and fine artists before them. The “ambiguity and paradox resonate within this artwork, recognized by the artists through their active participation in the realities of community. Differences, whether reconciled or simply tolerated, must be accommodated somehow within the artwork” (Lacy, 1995, p.38). The role of the artist, viewer, and art object have continually shifted and been questioned throughout contemporary Western art history as outlined here and social practice continues the exploration of these dynamics in it’s own ways. Social practice is no longer bound by modernism’s emphasis on specificity of media; rather it attempts to think beyond traditional mediums in an attempt to forge more complex and fluid possibilities. It embraces community-based practices, social justice, and critical pedagogy which casts it in a distinctly social role that has the potential to revitalize the relevance of the arts beyond their elemental or physical actions (Schlemmer, 2016).
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THE METHODOLOGY OF A STUDY OUTLINES DESIGN OF THE STUDY, THE METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION, AND THE METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS.
Narrative inquiry is a specific type of qualitative design in which narrative is understood as a spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events/actions, chronologically connected (Czarniawska, 2004). A defining feature of narrative inquiry involves researchers collecting stories from individuals about individuals’ lived and told experiences. My narrative inquiry study was framed by constructivist-interpretivist paradigmatic assumptions. This means I believe that to understand a world of meaning one must interpret it; I must interpret the process of meaning construction and clarify what and how meaning are embodied in the language and practice of others (Schwandt, 2014). I collected the stories of 5 community-based artists, art educators, and artist-activists who engage with others through art and social practice through semi-structured interviews.
I look towards strategies frequently used by qualitative researchers and organized by Creswell & Poth (1997) in three groups of lenses: researcher’s lens, participant’s lens, and reader’s lens. This includes recognizing my bias and power as researcher, conducting member checks, and triangulating the data via peer coding.
DATA ANALYSIS: THEMATIC DATA ANALYSIS (CRESWELL & POTH, 1997) I READ THROUGH EACH INTERVIEW TO FORM INITIAL CODES, THEN ANALYZED THE PATTERNS ACROSS THE EXPERIENCES OF EACH PARTICIPANT TO BEGIN TO CLASSIFY CODES INTO THEMES, AND FINALLY INTERPRETED THE LARGER MEANING OF EACH THEME IN RELATION TO EACH PARTICIPANT’S STORIES.
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The Findings
Upon collecting stories from participants and thematically coding emergent themes throughout our conversations, I was able to identify five main emergent themes to express my findings.
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This toolkit offers strategies concieved from these themes that can be implemented into your practice in art education, social practice, community art education, or activism.
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SUGGESTIONS FOR PRACTICE SURROUNDING THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR, HOW TO NAVIGATE THE POWER RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THESE CONTEXTS, AND HOW TO ENABLE THE EMERGENCE OF COMMUNITY/PARTICIPANT VOICES ARE ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS SECTION THEMES.
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There were many elements of collectiveness that contributed to participant’s stories that expressed both physical and symbolic gestures of democracy and collaboration, not feeling reliant on institutions, and valuing individual’s crafts and tools to communicate with each other on social and political issues.
The role of the facilitator was important in the emergent theme of collectiveness . Strategies used by participants that consider their role as facilitator to be considered as recommendations for practice include the following. Reflexivity: An overarching theme of each participant’s story involves a self-reflexive analysis of themselves within the context of their practice. Thus, it is necessary for anyone engaging in the public sphere to be reflexive of not only their role, but also of their own expectations of themselves and others within public practices. Creating a dialogue and reflexive practice within themselves can help facilitators navigate their role within their various practices. This can be done by considering what one has to offer. This is in relation to both honoring the identity of others and creating a sense of collectiveness. Being reflexive of one’s role in social practice also may require performance of the facilitator, presenting themselves in a way that they believe will yield more approachable art experiences for others.
An Activist Approach: Taking a lead from activist-artists who use their skillset, their toolboxes of artistic practice and techniques, to engage people with art for political purposes – artists and educators interested in social practice can use their toolboxes to engage with people with art for social and political purposes. What is in your toolbox? What tools and skills do you provide that no one else can? And from this – how do you share your toolbox with others that gives them facility within the project, honors their identity, and is reflective of your power as facilitator? This strategy involves emergent themes such as collectiveness, honoring identity, and factors of art as survival. Multiplicity of Roles: All participants offer that they take on multiple roles within their practice that expand beyond being artists or educators. These roles range across disciplines depending on each individual’s practice. Self-identifying the multiple roles they have as facilitators directly affects how they construct social engagement through art and place. It affirms that these participants feel that hold a multi-functioning role that expands beyond educator or artist, which ultimately yields different methodologies and strategies for engaging with others through art.
THE ROLE THE FACILITATOR ASSUMED WITHIN SOCIALLY ENGAGED PROJECTS DIRECTLY RELATES TO THE PHYSICAL SPACE THE PROJECTS ARE IN, THE STRUCTURE OF THE PROJECT, AND THE AMOUNT OF CONTROL IN WHICH THE FACILITATOR HOLDS WITHIN THE PROJECT. I ASKED EACH PARTICIPANT WHAT THEY VIEWED THEIR ROLE AS FACILITATOR WITHIN THEIR ARTISTIC AND/OR EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE TO ANALYZE HOW THESE FACTORS ARE RELATED OR UNRELATED TO ONE ANOTHER IN RELATION TO THEIR VARIOUS CONTEXTS.
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Art-making can be seen as a privileged or leisure activity, but the stories offered by participants demonstrated that collaborative art making can create meaningful experiences that can positively effect mental and physical health. Art as survival is a complex emergent theme because of its personal connections to each participant. Art as survival is an emergent theme that encapsulates subcategories expressed by participants in their stories surrounding mental health, foundational physical needs of survival, the practicality of ‘day jobs’ serving financially for artists and art being seen as a mental or spiritual necessity to participants to survive in their day to day lives or to feel connected with others. Through the subcategories of this emergent theme, I began to understand how ‘art as survival’ could be interpreted as a way in which participants use art for their basic needs, serving both the physical and mental, and how this then in turn leads to the construction of social engagement with others by collectively giving to others through their art that include both the physical art object and the service of social practice events. Art-making practices, educating others on the benefits of art-making in relation to mental health, and using tools of collaboration to create art and meaningful experiences in meaningful spaces emerged to provide a look into how art can be viewed as a tool for survival in both mental and physical health.
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“Socially engaged art education (...) extend(s) art and education beyond formal institutions to include the community as part of the learning environment.” Schlemmer, 2016
Approachable art experiences can be constructed by the use of creating dialogue with participants, providing context and history of specific art mediums and art history, and emphasizing the tactile act of creating over technical skill. The use of dialogue can be looked at as an entry point into an approachable art-making activity. Many participants discussed relaying information to their students while not critiquing or guiding their processes. This creates an approachable art experience because it creates an environment that is open to experimentation, and places more importance to a personal or historical connection to the context of the activity over the skill of creation.
It allows participants to explore the content in a way that feels accessible to them. Participants also reflected on the physical accessibility of art-making spaces within their stories. Strategies to create physically approachable art experiences focus on the physical surroundings that include the following. Participants describe being conscious of their students various mental and physical abilities, being communicative and flexible with others on expecations, and providing entry points for other senses including touch and sound.
ANOTHER ASPECT OF CREATING AN APPROACHABLE ART EXPERIENCE CAN BENEFIT FROM THE FACILITATOR REFLECTING ON WHAT THEY BELIEVE THEIR ROLE TO BE WITHIN THE EXPERIENCE. AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE FACILITIATOR’S ROLE AND THE STRATEGIES AND CONTEXTS PRESENTED CAN AID IN SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT THROUGH ART, AND CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT OF TRUST AND VULNERABILITY.
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Developing and maintaining trusting relationships, engaging in active listening and opening dialogues.
Showing their own vulnerability when collaborating with others.
Researching communities and their histories before entering into their spaces.
HONORING THE IDENTITY OF PARTICIPANTS AND THE PLACES IN WHICH SOCIAL PRACTICE TAKES PLACE EMERGED IN DATA FROM PARTICIPANT’S STORIES IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:
Honoring the art objects that are made by celebrating them as you would other artistic accomplishments.
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Akin to performance artists, socially engaged artists rely on first hand experiences with others to engage with one another critically through art. Spectatorship and authorship are also challenged in these works. The act of performing and being a performer was particularly emphasized when assessing the role of facilitators in various social practice situations and projects as a way to manage emotions and expectations of participants involved. Some other subcategories of performance include using ideas and philosophies of improvisation, and using humor to diffuse tensions and show vulnerability and trust. The emergence of the role of performance in social practice for these participants also emphasizes the ephemeral quality of social practice events. It further reinforces that for these participants, in most instances, that the art object is not always central to the meaning of the work and reinforces the dematerialization of the art object often seen in social practice. Performing is an element of education and artmaking that many art educators can relate to on some level. The use of performance by these participants were directly related to their goals for their practice. By using the strategies of improvisation including active listening and collaboration, your own sense of humor, and being playful when appropriate can open up others to new experiences through art which in turn create positive social interactions and create an environment of trust and vulnerability.
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BEING A REFLEXIVE CO-CREATOR
Participants expressed asking questions during multiple stages of the project including, “Who is this activity for? What will make it most meaningful to them? Does this make sense for the audience we are trying to engage?”
ARTIST AS ETHNOGRAPHER
View your participants as experts, engage them in the co-construction of knowledge through all stages of the artistic process, be a participant observer. Your role as artist-ethnographer in the production of knowledge in COMMUNICATING EXPECTATIONS relationship to others enables the community to share power over By communicating the expectations what is produced. you have of yourself and others involved within the process of collaboration, opening dialogues to allow active participation by others, others can recognize their own power and facility within a project .
POWER RELATIONSHIPS EXPRESSED THROUGHOUT THE PARTICIPANT’S STORIES DEMONSTRATE A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCES THAT ARE REMINISCENT OF MANY ARTIST AND EDUCATOR’S EXPERIENCES WORKING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE. STRATEGIES THAT EMERGED FROM PARTICIPANT STORIES WHEN DISCUSSING HOW TO NAVIGATE THE POWER RELATIONSHIPS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
CREATING APPROACHABLE ART EXPERIENCES
Focus on the act of making as opposed to skill or craft, emphasis on the history of craft or place, and communicating with participants your expectations of co-collaborating can create approachable art experiences.
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Artists and educators who include various communities as part of the learning environment within various physical spaces and in different contexts push the boundaries of learning which constitutes new forms of engagement. Findings from data and recommendations for practice in constructing social engagement through art and place include the following.
The Physical Art Object: The creation of a physical art
object was expressed by some participants to be a conduit for engaging with place both socially and independently. In social practice, a physical art object may not be central to the creation or meaning of the work, but can serve as a tactile way to construct social engagement as a kind of entry point towards social collaboration.
Physical Surroundings:
Difficulties of accessibility for disabled participants were expressed in some stories. Physical surroundings can impede the success of a workshop, event, art piece, etc. Considering only the able-bodied in the ideation of constructing art in various places can lead to difficulties for all involved. By considering the able-ness of all participants and using the resources of the physical space to work for them, one can become a better educator by expanding their understanding of what aesthetic and social experiences can look like, and increase the accessibility of the event to all participants.
Themes and Big Ideas: The use of a theme or big idea was
impactful to the social practice event. By constructing meaning of the theme together, participants were able to socially connect with one another through not only the making of an art object, but also respond to the place and theme surrounding the event which provided many layers of meaning for participants to meaningful connect to. Participants felt that through holding a multi-functioning role that expands beyond educator or artist, which ultimately yields different methodologies and strategies for engaging with others through art.
, “MOST ARTISTS WHO PRODUCE SOCIALLY ENGAGED WORKS ARE INTERESTED IN CREATING A KIND OF COLLECTIVE ART THAT AFFECTS THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN A DEEP AND MEANINGFUL WAY, NOT IN CREATING A REPRESENTATION (…) OF A SOCIAL ISSUE” (HELGUERA, 2011)
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These are strategies that one can use when considering thoughtful ways to enable the voices of their participants operating in the public sphere and social practice.
Celebrating Community/Participant Input: This strategy seems apparent,
Participant’s stories involving enabling community voices varied in strategies that reflected their own practice.
but there are many ways in which one can allow for community and participant input using the models of projects that participants have offered within their stories above. For some, the art-making is reliant on participant input for the foundational structure of the event. For others, allowing for participant input that does not rely on the artmaking activity to guide the experience makes more sense. Art-making in this situation as a conduit to have others express themselves, ask questions, and presenting herself and the experience in approachable ways that make her participants comfortable. Other strategies include allowing for community input by uplifting the voices of others through social media, and being adamant on converging our activist actions into everyday actions.
Facilitating meaningful events in meaningful spaces: One participant
held a film screening within their particular city at a particular time and created a meaningful event in a meaningful space that enabled the emergence of the individual voices of the community to be honored. Enabling community voices in this way hopefully builds trust and a vulnerability between all parties is important when considering what a meaningful event in a meaningful space constitutes as.
Being a reflexive co-creator: This is also reflected in the discussion on power
relationships. In relation to enabling community voices, operating as a reflexive cocreator was suggested in participant’s stories in expressing not needing to filter conversations, opening dialogues. Not filtering conversations, or letting community members facilitate themselves, are ways in which the facilitator is understanding of their role within the work and reflexive of their power.
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This research project provides insight into a deeper understanding of the experiences of artists and educators whose practice reflect similar qualities to many socially engaged artists. It enables a greater look at how artists and educators working in the public sphere define their roles as facilitators, how they navigate the power relationships when constructing social engagement through art and place, and how they enable the voice of the community within their practice. By analyzing the emergent themes of collectiveness, art as survival, art as an approachable experience, performance, and honoring identity I was able to identify the narratives of participants in way that explored their social, educational, and artistic practices to delve into a more complex understanding of social practice. There needs to be more research into those who specifically identify as a social practice artist and how that self-identification aligns with how their strategies and methodologies can be implemented by art educators in various settings. In conclusion, throughout this research project I have realized a more profound understanding of the ways in which social practice can contribute to my own role within my community as an artist, educator, and activist.
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