Art That Activates Change

Art and activism—when intermingled, these two have the potential to shift the tides of social movements. There is a resonance that moves people who engage with art through the lens of activism, and we have seen the rise of this phenomenon over the past half-decade through social media. However, activists have always relied on art to communicate the unspoken and to solve multilayered issues. BY ZANNA AMANFU ’24

Across the Charles River on the SMFA Fenway campus, students have taken actionable steps toward activism through art. Many student groups at SMFA share similar civic-minded values through their artmaking: including the Eco Arts Club. Eco Arts is spearheaded by two third-year Combined Degree students, Zoee and Laura. Their interests span from biopsychology and colonial-environmental history to metals, print media, papermaking, and beyond.

The origins of Eco Arts began when these two became increasingly inquisitive about sustainable art-making in a class focused on environmental justice. They wanted to continue these conversations when the semester came to a close and took initiative and formed Eco Arts as an acting social space where SMFA students could come together over this mutual interest. Laura wanted people to come to Eco Arts and leave having found community in a casual way—one that deviates from the structure of classroom reading and lecture.

Centering activism within artistic practice facilitates much needed change in the art world where artists are conscious of the materials they use. Zoee and Laura agreed that activism at SMFA takes on a lot of different roles. It can appear as digitally produced art in the form of graphics and banners on social media or appear in community-based participatory workshops. As for Eco Arts, Zoee described the experience as the blend between materiality and sustainability: art and material rooted in things like sustainable foraging. In her and Laura’s minds, Eco Arts is a small part of a much larger whole.

A person cuts out the border of a picture.

The first few Eco Arts meetings were focused on building community by taking trips to the Fells— woodlands surrounded by beautiful bodies of flowing water just outside of Boston. These trips were not just insightful for the participants, but they simultaneously chipped away at the innate hierarchy assumed in participating in student-run clubs. The co-presidents intended for Eco Arts to feel like a collaborative space where all members can contribute. If you want to get involved, you can expect to be making ink out of plant material, going to the Fells and scavenging while hiking, joining painting and ink workshops, cyanotyping, or working on mending projects like embroidering an old pair of clothes.

Outside of Eco Arts, SMFA conducts workshops in the atrium for collaborative work—building knowledge around focused areas of the arts while using community as a foundational aspect of activism. Zoee and Laura shouted out the successful Health, Safety, and Sustainability Week run by the SMFA Sustainability Committee, the Tufts University Art Galleries, the Art for Social Change course, and the Garden Club as examples of SMFA supporting activism in its mission and in the classroom. They urge students to use their voices and hold difficult conversations if they want to initiate these reimagined structures of activism through art. While they do their part in running Eco Arts, their hope is that SMFA will increase outreach and get students connected with even more initiatives in local communities.