Reading #3: Lorain Leeson (fieldwork) – Process and Product

Political, cultural and geographical features add value to community and social practices. Participation and collaboration of people from any age group creates different perspectives for outcome of art project. Thus, collaboration and diversity of communities expand the cultural activism and art. Social practice whole purpose is to develop, raise awareness, educate and change society. If this is the case as it mentioned in Artful Teaching (2010): community artists must actively and systematically engage, promote through art and teach. The most effective and permanent method is teaching through art, where people collaborate instead participate. Art and social practice projects must be systematically applied and supported starting from school environment. As children climb to higher stages in the state-funded education system creativity disappears from the curriculum. Sadly, very little space and lack of learning materials from art perspective appears in this system. To bring a change in schools Leeson accepts that many projects have a commission or fund. She mainly mentions the advantages of funding, where it becomes a beneficial step in research and development of the process and product. However, I believe in the opposite because excepted art is not creative. There is always an expected multiple outcome from these projects; the outcomes are certainly attached its funders. To indicate this fact, we can approach to Leeson’s text where she mentions the power of imagination, creativity of children in the process of social practices but at the same time she wants the practice to be its ‘best’. This contrast clarifies the invisible pressure and responsibility of funders on “community” artists. Their social art practice must be suitable for the society and system. It is kind of a cycle, children or participants follow artists, artists follow funders. Now we can call it ‘the art of negotiation’ a negotiation between artist and funder.

Where is the social change in these collaborations or participations? Where is art in this process?

Rebellious kind of art has been created outside galleries, museum. It must carry freedom of creativeness and expressionism. It has to communicate with community in their environment (outside). Even practices that hold valuable meanings, political and cultural activism, I still do not believe the honesty of exhibited social practice in galleries or museum. Such as works: ‘Part 2’ by Santiago Sierra, ‘Sunflower seeds’ by Ai Weiwei etc. Using underprivileged people or students for art project is not the way to raise an awareness through art. In my opinion one of the modernist collaborated, socially engaged art practice is created by Candy Chang, a project called ‘Before I Die’ (Figure 1). It gives a freedom, speech, desire, creativity and acts as a reminder of death in a fun, artistic way. After a death of her loved one she wanted to start a communication, reflection of death and life on a dispersed house in her neighbourhood in New Orleans in 2011. “Before I die I want to_____,” project on chalkboard was entirely filled out by the next day. Today it is a worldwide known and created project, it is on 3,000 walls in over 70 countries in different languages. This is art.

Figure 1. “Before I die …” project. Savannah, GA, USA. Photo by Trevor Coe

Bibliography:

Loraine Leeson, ‘Chapter 6: Process and Product’, Art: Process: Change: Inside a Socially Situated Practice (Routledge, 2017), pp. 77-98.

Engaging Classrooms and Communities Through Art: A Guide to Designing and Implementing Community-based Art Education. Authors: Beth Krensky, Seana Lowe Steffen. Publisher: Rowman Altamira, 2009

Artful Teaching: Integrating the Arts for Understanding Across the Curriculum, K–8. Authors: David M. Donahue, Jennifer Stuart. Teachers College Press, 2010

http://candychang.com/work/before-i-die-in-nola/

Figure 1: http://candychang.com/work/before-i-die-in-nola/