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The Message of Social Art

¨The public are we make of ourselves in the street, the languages of out bodies tracing postures and assuming them, the paths of our eyes grazing each other, are either participatory or resistant. Here, in public, we can choose to change out immediate world by remaking our myths and telling our own stories, by remembering how to ask and listen, and by learning to show our most real faces to each other and celebrating them. Show your warts, and you defy the very process of airbrushing the truth. Risk smiling at the person sitting nest to you on the bus, and immediately the message of isolation is undermined. Not just for the two of you, but also for those watching this unusual event unfold. The moment we notice that we can make fresh choices every minute...it´s easy to see that we´re all in this together. Isolation was somebody else´s bad idea.¨ 
... This quote came to be on just the day that I decided to at last publish my public art project in a wonderful little book I´m reading called, "Off The Map". It speaks so simply and beautifully of social art that I found it well suited to my ideas here. Art is what we make it and what we make it can be incredible. 

Social art is a global espression of creativity. It is a collaboration of change, an agent of justice, and a weapon of communication. Simply as art, it is beautiful, and, at the same time, a powerful tool for building awareness and sharing knowledge. Made by people for people, social art is accessibly public, whether made on the streets or in nature. It is a way to reach out and spread your message to the world.

 

     By exposing issues, art can educate and inspire; promote and prevent. Throughout history, stories have been told through art, from honoring traditions and uniting cultures to showing thankfulness in our the communities. In some places, radical voices have been heard that agitate and motivate the public against an opressor. Elsewhere, art has been used to beautify communal areas and as memorials to our loved ones. You can check out some inspiring art that I have come across at my Wordwide Expressions page!

 

Contrary to popular belief, social art does not exist solely in grafitti. From yarn bombs to performance art to sidewalk chalk, there are an infinite number of ways for artists to espress themselves. The first step of seeing public art is realizing what art is in itself. And the answer?

Art is anything with the intent to be art. Most people will agree to things like jewelry, pottery, paintings, photography, and the modern digital animation as ¨art¨.

What about the list of words below? Do they count as art?

 

  • Clothing

  • Music

  • Advertisements

  • Drama theater 

  • Spoken poetry

  • A child´s doodle

  • An adult´s doodle

  • Landscaping

  • Tatoos 

  • Hairstyles

  • Cake decoratations

  • The piece of furnature that you´re sitting on

  • The last vehicle you were in

  • The next movie you´ll watch

  • This list of words

 

It´s all a matter of opinion and openminded perception.

Here, I invite you to explore the grand movement of social art, both worldwide and in the world close to me, as I am an exchange student in Monteverde, Costa Rica. I will be posting a special on my current community and school, on my Costa Rica Page, which are filled to bursting with art. I also encourage you to be, not only the  audiance, but the artists. My ¨Community of Social Artists¨is open to all- welcoming all photos and stories of art you have created or have been moved by in some way.

Whether we are inspired to do art ourselves, or to share and appreciate someone else, everyone can be a part of the powerful movement of social art. 

                                                                   -Renay   

Our world without art is emotionless. 
There is no color to a child's’ cheeks, nor sparkle to a grandparent’s eye. We move as if there is no grace or agility in our limbs, which themselves, are bare.
There are not just shades of gray, but no hues at all. We lack the creativity to inspire and there is no inspiration from which to create. Our faces sit, placid, without the thought to alter our expression, because even our bodies lack the art of language. 
Without art, there is safety in the sense that we can never hold the desire to hurt one another. Not even the beauty of natural phenomenons can interrupt our melancholy lives. We never feel revenge or hatred or greed or lust, because these things must first be imagined. 
We can never love either, for, without feeling, there can not be affection. Sex is nothing more than a necessary part of our tranquil lives and, in turn, our mothers and father care for us without a reason, a passion, or an emotion. 
Our children do not play -not for lack of toys of an excessive set of rules- but because we cannot feel the curiosity or inclination of discovery. There are no doodles on our sidewalks in chalk or finger paint smears on our walls . Here, we do not know how to laugh. 
The monotone of our voices, relaying only the most necessary of messages to one another, create a constant drone in the stagnant air. The sound is never-ending and does not vary in pitch  or frequency. Our words have no inflection and our questions are the same as our answers. 
Physically, our bodies are able to do many things. Our vocal chords can change pitch to laugh or sing. Our feet can learn to dance or run. Our hands can hold each other and our fingers can be taught to spin wool and play music. And yet, the possibilities of discovery are as unrealized to us as the thoughts that such beauty could exist. 
Our world continues, always the same, in an insignificant place with no notion of time. We last a second, a millennium, and just shy of infinity, all in the same moment. 
And then, in that moment, we change. 
One drop of rain is seen, by chance or by fate, by a young squirrel, who watches its decent with no attached emotion. Then, altering our universe, this small creature experiences something that our world has not yet seen. For the briefest of moments, this drop of solitary rain transforms into a rainbow of possibilities. Though in the next second, its colors have disappeared, this moment is all our world needs to transform into something more. 
The squirrel’s eyes light up, an emotion of wonder crossing its petite face and a cry of joy escaping its lips. Our worlds monotonous drone is shattered and suddenly the creatures of our one colorless universe don’t just listen; we hear for the first time. And what we hear brings life to our faces as we stretch the muscles of self expression, which have never been inspired to move before. In the same moment, a parent is able to realize, by the sound of crying, that their child is experiencing hunger. 
In another part of the world, a young human is discovering that he finds himself to be a man, because now the intricacies of gender seem to matter a great deal to him. A women near him makes a similar decision and soon the onslaught of affection engulfs their shy minds. An elderly fellow, who had never realized before that he possesses a memory, begins at once to tell his stories. Soon, a young girl decides that it would be a splendid idea to come up with figures with which to write down these enchanting tales. And enchanting they are, even with a history with such apparent nothingness, because, as the man finds his memory, he finds, too, the things which he had not been aware of in the present. 
Now that there is sense of time; of past and of present, our memories are flooded with pictures. Some of us even find that it is possible to draw these pictures with a stick in the sand and this soon brings about the creation of paints and pigments of all kinds. With time, there is also imagined an idea of a future, which creates hopes and fears that we have never dreamed of. 
Near a little pond, the squirrel who had first discovered discovery is now fascinating herself with her own reflection. She tries on all sorts of endless facial expressions that she had not known could possess her. Some make her laugh in delight and others she leaps back from with fright, only to creep slowly to the water’s edge as soon as she believes the alarming version of herself to be diminished. Then she beams and is delighted to have once more her sweet, smiling friend reappear in the clear water below. And with this smile she brings love to our world and there is peace. 
Our world with art is beautiful                                                          

                                                                                                                                                                -Renay Friendshuh Oct. 7th, 2013

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