Art is not just for entertainment

Sherin Neshat speaks about the West's tendency toward thinking about art as merely a form of entertainment. She speaks about the power of art to threaten the Iranian government and to push for change. As a female Iranian artist she speaks about the shifting actions of women in Iran toward change and freedom. Art can transcend politics, it can transcend religion, art can activate a community stop the oppression of women

Shifting the Paradigm of Disability through Art

Sue Austen is a multimedia installation artist whose practice is embedded in social engagement. She has a physical disability that has resulted in her using a motorized wheelchair.

Finding our way through the world is difficult, those with disabilities have even greater challenges navigating a world that is designed for those who are able-bodied. We all know that for peace to be sustainable it requires a paradigm shift in how we perceive each other: how we see and value difference. Sue Austen sees her art practice as a means of remaking one's identity and transforming preconceptions of disability by re-visioning the familiar. Rather than seeing the limitations and restrictive nature of a wheelchair, we are invited to discover through her eyes, the wheelchair as a vehicle of transformation.

Academics, researchers and practitioners in the field of arts and peace, understand that images rendered artistically can generate empathy, which in turn, makes action possible. Strategically using the arts can help to create social change by shifting preconceptions, prejudices and patterns.

Have a look. She is courageous and aims (successfully I would suggest)  to create a paradigm shift in how we see disability and ability.

Art for Social Change: A personal tale

In February 2005, I was invited  to work in the north of Sri Lanka with orphans and victims of the tsunami and twenty year war. My goal to was find way of creating art and rituals with them, that would offer ways to make sense of their experiences and to rebuild their community. During my five weeks as a guest of Tamil nuns I engaged with approximately 1000 women, children and men who had lost their families, homes and hope when the tsunami hit.

The Tamils say the Tsunami (26 December 2004) is the second disaster for them, the first being the civil war.

While there, I visited Mulliativu, a town on the Jaffna Peninsula in which 5,000 of the 25,000 souls were taken by the sea. Many of the women and nuns, who offered support and counsel to those survivors, created works of art that reflected their own personal narrative of loss.

In 2009, I was invited to submit a poem to a website that was raising awareness about global warming. My response was inspired by the painting (above) and by my experience so soon after the tsunami as it is believed that human induced global warming causes extremes and frequency in weather events such as tsunamis and flooding and continues to devastate people's loves throughout the globe.

Oh green, lush Sri Lanka -
"Teardrop of India" -
the world weeps for you, and leaves
unwanted salt-water tears
to flush away memories.

Such betrayal from Mother Ocean.
Once nurturing and generous,
a deep rumbling within her womb,
angered her to rise and lash out at your people,
for whom loss is not foreign.

Surviving Fisher-folk!
Cast your nets around her waist,
hold tightly for fear of being lost
and wail for those bodies held
deep within her grasp.    

©Sarah Dobbs 2009

Peace Makers

I've just returned from the Peace Justice Studies Association Conference in San Diego. The conference was wonderful and well attended. The women key notes speakers such as Sherri Mitchell, Almudena Berabeu and Monisha Bajaj, offered us all insights into the range of peace activism and education that is being undertaken internationally.

Four women who are participants in the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies Peace Makers program gave presentations on the work they have been doing in Uganda, India, Sri Lanka and Israel. Robi Damelin who is living and working in Israel, spoke of the work she and the Parents Circle Family Forum are doing to arrest retaliation violence between Israelis and Palestinians. She uses the arts in many instances to build friendships and partnerships between these communities. She began her talk by asking people not to fight their fight as it increases the ill feelings and violence. Very wise words indeed!

There was also a youth summit as part of the conference. Here you see them performing for the conference attendees.

Cycles of Art and Healing

I just came across a blog titled Warscapes There is an article by Melissa Smyth entitled "Cycles of Art and Healing by Syrian Refugees" in which she takes us through the experience of a young Syrian artist, Soulaf Abas , who is working with Syrian refugees along the border of Jordan.

She listens to their stories and records them through paintings and drawings (as above). In doing so she is acting as witness to the refugees broken narratives, giving them a voice, and allowing them to move beyond the silence of their suffering.

Peace Studies Conference

As I prepare to present research at conference hosted by the Peace and Justice Studies Association in San Diego, I find myself once again reflecting on the role women play in building peace and how they are the ones who suffer the most during and post conflict.

There is a Kenyan Proverb: "It is the grass under the feet of the elephant that gets destroyed in the fight". In other words, it is the innocent - the women and children - who suffer the most when there is conflict (and certainly academic research reinforces what we know instinctively). Gender-based violence does not simply become manifest in the use of sexual violence but in any restrictive form of violence towards women. These include a lack of access to education, diverse ethnic and tribal identities, gender-based issues, such as land ownership, inheritance rights, an imbalance of household roles within a patriarchal society, rituals such as female circumcision or female genital mutilation, severe poverty and many other forms of violence that target women’s identity or social and cultural roles.

When I was in Uganda, I worked with a group of women who had been displaced by the violence of the Kony insurgency. These women had escaped the violence in the North of Uganda and were now living on the grounds of Liziria, the maximum security prison in Kampala. They spoke of how they imagined peace, how they knew when they were at peace, and what they did to encourage peace with each other and with those they loved who were still far away. We sat and talked, and most importantly, listened as they shared their stories and their struggles to rebuild their lives and to create new community.

Art and Disease

Jacqueline Firkins, at University of British Columbia is involved in an interdepartmental research project "Fashioning Cancer: The Correlation between Destruction and Beauty". She designed a series of dresses that use images of growing cancer cells as the base for her fabric design. The project culminated in an auction during which the dresses were sold to raise funds for cancer research.

This is another example of using the arts to raise awareness and shift perceptions.