Title: Why Artistic Activism? – The Center for Artistic Activism
Headings: Why Artistic Activism?
Why Artistic Activism?
Why Artistic Activism: Nine Reasons
1: Artistic Activism Mobilizes Affect and Effect
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2: Artistic Activism Thrives in the Contemporary Landscape
3: Artistic Activism Has Been Used Throughout History
4: Artistic Activism Creates Openings
5: Artistic Activism is Accessible
6: Artistic Activism Stimulates a Culture of Creativity
7: Artistic Activism Energizes People and Organizations
8: Artistic Activism is About the Long Game
9: Artistic Activism is Peaceful and Persuasive
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Content: 3: Artistic Activism Has Been Used Throughout History
While Artistic Activism is particularly well suited for the contemporary moment, throughout history the most effective civic actors have married the arts with campaigns for social change, using aesthetic approaches to provide a critical perspective on the world as it is and imagine the world as it could be. In the struggle for Civil Rights for African Americans in the US, for example, activists drew upon the stories and songs and participatory culture of the black churches, staged media-savvy stunts like Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, played white racist reaction against peaceful protesters as a sympathetic passion play during the campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, and, most famously, used imaginative imagery (and popular cultural references) in a speech to call America to task for its racist past and articulate a dream of a better future. While Martin Luther King Jr is now largely remembered for his example of moral courage, social movement historian Doug McAdam’s estimation of King’s “genius for strategic dramaturgy,” likely better explains the success of his campaigns. From Jesus’s use of parables to engage his audience, to dramatizing “this is what democracy looks like” in public squares around the world in 2011, working artfully makes activism effective. Many activists know this intuitively, but by naming it “artistic activism” we take what would be a folk art and turn it into a defined practice — giving it the attention and study it demands. 4: Artistic Activism Creates Openings
Art and activism often conforms to expectations — and for many people those expectations are, unfortunately, negative. Artistic activism is activism that doesn’t look like activism and art that doesn’t look like art. The ability of artistic activism to surprise us – to show up in unlikely places (e.g. not a gallery) or take on unfamiliar forms (e.g. not a protest march) provides an opportunity to disrupt people’s preconceived notions of art and protest, and their predetermined ideas about the messages we are trying to communicate.