Arts in Crisis

What is the role of the arts during moments of crisis?

Many of us are asking ourselves this question right now. Our world is in a period of dramatic change. Unprecedented may be too strong a word given the history of global wars and pandemics, but I believe that there is a growing consensus that our world is on a path to looking much different in the near future than it has in the very recent past.

So where is art in this?

Many of the earliest depictions of art are thought to represent some form of ritual or religion. I am extrapolating on that a bit and suggesting that the earliest forms of art helped human beings express something that they could not comprehend or express through their everyday experience. In my opinion, this is the power of art. It allows us all to engage with powerful ideas and feelings that we don't fully understand. Our world today is inundated with powerful forces of change that we don't yet fully comprehend. Politics, health, social justice; this year has thrust some truly awesome questions into our social discourse and as a society, we are grasping for answers.

Perhaps this is a time to turn to art.

The beginning of the Renaissance period generally coincides with the Black Death. World War II saw art take on many forms, from propaganda designed to win the hearts and minds of nations, to personal acts of creativity by individuals physically trapped in the most unthinkable circumstances. And contemporary artists like Hank Willis Thomas and Glenn Ligon tackle issues of slavery and black identity through art. Some of the most powerful works of art have been born out of a deep desire for humans to simply make sense of tragedy and change.

So what about now?

Arts and culture, and the artists who create it, have also been hit hard at a time when those voices are needed the most. As we find ourselves socially isolated and, once again, confronted with the dehumanizing reality of racial and economic power structures in this country, we need to find ways to express the inexpressible. Art, whether visual or performance, has the power to convey the messages that need to be heard right now. Empathy, compassion, humility; these are messages that can be complex to convey and can easily be misconstrued depending on the context and the speaker. Through art, however, we try to deliver these complex messages of healing at a deeper level that can resonate beyond race, color, socio-economic status, gender, etc. Our society needs to embrace the power of arts to deliver these messages and support its use as a tool to grapple with some of these uncertainties.

There is an alternative way that we convey powerful messages about feelings we do not understand and that is through violence. We are seeing people turn to violence in order to communicate a frustration with uncertainty and injustice. For the sake of our communities, we need a better way.

None of this is to say that arts and culture are a silver bullet for a pandemic or structural racism and inequities, but we need to be looking in ourselves and to our leaders to find and support the constructive tools needed to address these issues. When we can explain, we should. We should be using our science and technology, our political and legal systems, and our advocacy and grassroots lobbying to craft solutions to some of the issues we are facing in our world today. But in order to deal with some of the questions that seem to currently have no answers, or the situations that just seem incomprehensible, perhaps we should look to art. That art can be anywhere. In fact, it is often everywhere. If we can use art as a means to engage with these collective feelings we are having as a nation and as a world, perhaps we can avoid some of the darker reactions to our current uncertainty.