I had a fascinating evening yesterday. I attended an event at the Young Vic in London where a number of economists, environmentalists, activists and others with engagement with sustainability explained their work to an audience of professional people engaged in the performing arts. I suspect there will be those who might think that, as wastes of time go, might be high on their list, but I suspect they are the people who question the value of most art unless it has an immediate cash value. It felt very worthwhile as a participant.
What we shared in common - without exception - was a concern with story telling. The quest was for ways of creating narratives that might persuade people to make the story of our transforming planet their own. Whether that be through the food they eat; the place that they live; the story of the company where they work or the finance that makes their lives possible (Frances Coppola's valuable contribution); each is a narrative to be owned.
How this reaches out is as yet not clear to me. That it can seems to be vital to me: it is only when people own this story as their own that the resilient society we need will be created. And I must admit partaking in such discussion is one of the occasional pleasures of my work.
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[…] have already commented on creating narratives this morning. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been doing that in this film. I […]
The Arts, in one form or another, shared through various means with people of all ages and in all walks of life, can reach and touch a lot more people than politics. They have a significant long term role to play.
My teenage mentor, sensing my political desire even then, told me if I wanted to change the world I should be a poet
And if not a poet then a novelist
And if not that, then at least a writer
But he wisely advised that politicians always follow the writers
Although I am not sure they read anymore
Sometimes our politicians sits and thinks and sometimes they just sits. 🙂
Marie Thomas says:
“The Arts, in one form or another, shared through various means with people of all ages and in all walks of life, can reach and touch a lot more people than politics. They have a significant long term role to play.”
Indeed ‘the Arts’ are the great mind benders. Another reason why I don’t have television …. not ‘high art’ for the most part, but a constant stream of influential propagandising of lifestyle. Corrie and East Enders and Emmerdale are establishment propaganda in my view. I wince at them when I see their infantilised characters thrashing about like overgrown toddlers in an unsupervised creche; toddlers overdosed on sex hormones
Unfortunately I miss the good stuff in order to avoid the poisonous crap. It’s an accommodation I am comfortable with.
You might miss good stuff, yes, sometimes….
The soaps/series you mention, which I don’t watch either but have had to see once or twice, seem to target people who need to sort out their own issues, or enjoy a bit of schadenfreude, but instead of sitting and thinking, or sitting and talking, they watch others (actors) play them out on the screen…
Oh well, each to their own. I thought they were bad for the kids I taught, it made them too prone to shouty drama-queenery, but then…maybe they got something out of it too, some of the time.
Few people would say those TV productions are Art though…but TV can produce artistic content, and when it does it well, that can reach very wide audiences who might not otherwise have had the inclination or the means to access it.
When it comes to the Arts, democratisation through whatever media can only be positive.
@Richard.
Sometimes just enjoying the Arts, encouraging others to share them, to take up an artistic path, can be just as rewarding.
Everyone can play a part in making sure Art lives on and is enjoyed by as many as possible.
Reading in itself can be an artistic creation, you create your own characters in your mind, your own interpretation of the stories told.
The same goes for a piece of music, for a painting or a sculpture.
In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that we can all be ‘second-hand artists’, maybe not at first-hand, but we all create when faced with real Art.
Marie Thomas says:
“Few people would say those TV productions are Art though…”
No, most of would probably not instantly bracket these things as ‘Art’, but that is what they are. They are the popular art of the early 21st century. Maybe in the future they will be treasured as the works of Dickens are today (?) They will surely be of considerable value to historians as a counterpoint to the formal descriptions of academic discourse on international issues and global politics.
Just as Dickens clearly struggled at times to fill pages to a deadline, or to wind his plots without resorting to implausible co-incidence (of which he seemed unduly fond) the soaps are pushed to meet production and screening schedules, and viewer ratings and the quality of the product suffers. But I’d contend that despite its flaws it still belongs to the category we would call ‘the Arts’.