Transformative arts

Last updated

Transformative arts is the use of artistic activities, such as story-telling, painting, and music-making, to precipitate constructive individual and social change.

The individual changes effected through transformative arts are commonly cognitive and emotional. This results from the way participation in a creative process and pursuit of an artistic practice can promote a critical re-evaluation of previously held beliefs, accompanied by unfamiliar feelings, which alters perception of the world, oneself, and others. [1]

The social changes effected through transformative arts occurs when this altered perception manifests in new ways of interacting with others. [2]

Although engagement in artistic activities has been integral to the means by which individuals and communities have sought personal comfort, self-reflection, and group cohesion for thousands of years, the origin of transformative arts as a modern formal concept is commonly attributed to the work of John Dewey. [3]

Dewey espoused four main ideas around which transformative arts pivot. Firstly, art is not an object but an experience, in which one or more persons participate. Secondly, every individual is potentially an artist by way of his or her capacity to participate in this experience, through any artistic activity. Thirdly, such participation inevitably precipitates some kind of transformative change to how the participants think, feel, and behave. Fourthly, art is therefore both psychological and social, transforming not only individual intrapersonal processes, but also interpersonal relationships. [4]

Accordingly, transformative arts are facilitated by artists with the psychological purpose of promoting individual introspection, [5] and with the social purpose of promoting inclusion, reciprocity, and justice. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art</span> Creative work to evoke aesthetic response

Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dewey</span> American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859–1952)

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.

Defamiliarization or ostranenie is the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way so they could gain new perspectives and see the world differently. According to the Russian formalists who coined the term, it is the central concept of art and poetry. The concept has influenced 20th-century art and theory, ranging over movements including Dada, postmodernism, epic theatre, science fiction, and philosophy; additionally, it is used as a tactic by recent movements such as culture jamming.

"My Pedagogic Creed" is an article written by John Dewey and published in School Journal in 1897. The article is broken into 5 sections, with each paragraph beginning "I believe." It has been referenced over 4100 times and continues to be referenced in recent publications as a testament to the lasting impact of the article's ideas.

Artistic freedom can be defined as "the freedom to imagine, create and distribute diverse cultural expressions free of governmental censorship, political interference or the pressures of non-state actors." Generally, artistic freedom describes the extent of independence artists obtain to create art freely. Moreover, artistic freedom concerns "the rights of citizens to access artistic expressions and take part in cultural life—and thus [represents] one of the key issues for democracy." The extent of freedom indispensable to create art freely differs regarding the existence or nonexistence of national instruments established to protect, to promote, to control or to censor artists and their creative expressions. This is why universal, regional and national legal provisions have been installed to guarantee the right to freedom of expression in general and of artistic expression in particular. In 2013, Ms Farida Shaheed, United Nations special rapporteur to the Human Rights Council, presented her "Report in the field of cultural rights: The right to freedom of expression and creativity" providing a comprehensive study of the status quo of, and specifically the limitations and challenges to, artistic freedom worldwide. In this study, artistic freedom "was put forward as a basic human right that went beyond the 'right to create' or the 'right to participate in cultural life'." It stresses the range of fundamental freedoms indispensable for artistic expression and creativity, e.g. the freedoms of movement and association. "The State of Artistic Freedom" is an integral report published by arts censorship monitor Freemuse on an annual basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protest art</span>

Protest art is the creative works produced by activists and social movements. It is a traditional means of communication, utilized by a cross section of collectives and the state to inform and persuade citizens. Protest art helps arouse base emotions in their audiences, and in return may increase the climate of tension and create new opportunities to dissent. Since art, unlike other forms of dissent, take few financial resources, less financially able groups and parties can rely more on performance art and street art as an affordable tactic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art therapy</span> Creation of art to improve mental health

Art therapy is a distinct discipline that incorporates creative methods of expression through visual art media. Art therapy, as a creative arts therapy profession, originated in the fields of art and psychotherapy and may vary in definition.

Organizational climate is a concept that has academic meaning in the fields of organizational behavior and I/O psychology as well as practical meaning in the business world There is continued scholarly debate about the exact definition of organizational climate for the purposes of scientific study. The definition developed by Lawrence R. James (1943-2014) and his colleagues makes a distinction between psychological and organizational climate.

"Psychological climate is defined as the individual employee’s perception of the psychological impact of the work environment on his or her own well-being. When employees in a particular work unit agree on their perceptions of the impact of their work environment, their shared perceptions can be aggregated to describe their organizational climate ."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction</span> 1935 essay by Walter Benjamin

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes and explains that mechanical reproduction devalues the aura (uniqueness) of an objet d'art, and that in the age of mechanical reproduction and the absence of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics. Written during the Nazi régime (1933–1945) in Germany, Benjamin presents a theory of art that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in a mass culture society.

Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space and resources to support their artistic practice. Contemporary artist residencies are becoming increasingly thematic, with artists working together with their host in pursuit of a specific outcome related to a particular theme.

Community art, also known as social art, community-engaged art, community-based art, and, rarely, dialogical art, is the practice of art based in and generated in a community setting. It is closely related to social practice and social turn. Works in this form can be of any media and are characterized by interaction or dialogue with the community. Professional artists may collaborate with communities which may not normally engage in the arts. The term was defined in the late 1960s as the practice grew in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. In Scandinavia, the term "community art" more often refers to contemporary art projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthropology of art</span>

Anthropology of art is a sub-field in social anthropology dedicated to the study of art in different cultural contexts. The anthropology of art focuses on historical, economic and aesthetic dimensions in non-Western art forms, including what is known as 'tribal art'.

Social Circus refers to the growing movement toward the use of circus arts as mediums for social justice and social good. It uses alternative pedagogical tools to work with youth who are marginalized or at social or personal risk.

Neuroanthropology is the study of the relationship between culture and the brain. This field of study emerged from a 2008 conference of the American Anthropological Association. It is based on the premise that lived experience leaves identifiable patterns in brain structure, which then feed back into cultural expression.The exact mechanisms are so far ill defined and remain speculative.

The psychology of art is the scientific study of cognitive and emotional processes precipitated by the sensory perception of aesthetic artefacts, such as viewing a painting or touching a sculpture. It is an emerging multidisciplinary field of inquiry, closely related to the psychology of aesthetics, including neuroaesthetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural policy</span> Policy intended to impact the arts, language, heritage, or diversity

Cultural policy is the government actions, laws and programs that regulate, protect, encourage and financially support activities related to the arts and creative sectors, such as painting, sculpture, music, dance, literature, and filmmaking, among others and culture, which may involve activities related to language, heritage and diversity. The idea of cultural policy was developed at UNESCO in the 1960s. Generally, this involves governments setting in place processes, legal classifications, regulations, legislation and institutions which promote and facilitate cultural diversity and creative expressions in a range of art forms and creative activities. Cultural policies vary from one country to another, but generally they aim to improve the accessibility of arts and creative activities to citizens and promote the artistic, musical, ethnic, sociolinguistic, literary and other expressions of all people in a country. In some countries, especially since the 1970s, there is an emphasis on supporting the culture of Indigenous peoples and marginalized communities and ensuring that cultural industries are representative of a country's diverse cultural heritage and ethnic and linguistic demographics.

Art as Experience (1934) is John Dewey's major writing on aesthetics, originally delivered as the first William James Lecture at Harvard (1932). Dewey's aesthetics have been found useful in a number of disciplines, including new media.

The social sciences are the sciences concerned with societies, human behaviour, and social relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blazing Swan</span>

Blazing Swan is an annual regional Burning Man event held near Jilakin Lake in the Shire of Kulin, Western Australia. It is an experiment in temporary community and artistic expression, and is guided by eleven main principles, including radical inclusion, gifting and radical self-reliance. The event occurs around Easter each year, usually over a period of seven days. The event location is on bushland adjacent to Jilakin Lake, and is referred to as Jilakin Rock City. Each year a wooden effigy is built and burned at the culmination of the event.

Transactionalism is a pragmatic philosophical approach to how we are known, maintain health and relationships, and satisfy our goals for money and career through ambitious ecologies. It involves the study and accurate thinking required to plan and organize one's limited resources to execute the fundamental mechanics of social exchange. To transact is learning to beat the odds or mitigate the common pitfalls involved with living a good and comfortable life by always factoring in the surrounding circumstances of people, places, things and the thinking behind any exchange from work to play.

References

  1. Preminger, S., 2012. Transformative art: art as means for long-term neurocognitive change. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 6, p.96.
  2. Vail, J. and Hollands, R., 2013. Creative democracy and the arts: The participatory democracy of the Amber Collective. Cultural Sociology, 7(3), pp.352-367.
  3. Goldblatt, P., 2006. How John Dewey's theories underpin art and art education. Education and culture, pp.17-34.
  4. John, D., 1934. Art as experience. New York: Minton, Balch, and Company.
  5. Brooke, S.L. and Myers, C.E. eds., 2015. Therapists Creating a Cultural Tapestry: Using the Creative Therapies Across Cultures. Charles C Thomas Publisher.
  6. LeBaron, M. and Sarra, J. eds., 2018. Changing Our Worlds: Arts as Transformative Practice (Vol. 12). AFRICAN SUN MeDIA.