Community-based arts work depends on close, collaborative relationships. Much of it relies on gathering in groups to take part in processes of self-discovery and to exercise the right to culture. It may be a path to personal development or political action. But whatever the intentions, community-based arts work braids pleasure and purpose to generate within …
On Friday, my virtual residency in arts ethics with Francois Matarasso ended with a Zoom conversations with 70 or so participants. I really enjoyed it (and a gratifying number of participants said they did too). If you would like to view the video of that conversation or listen to the audio, you can find links …
I’m excited to be engaged this week in a “virtual residency.” My friend and colleague Francois Matarasso is using his blog “A Restless Art” (where you can also download the excellent book with the same name) to publish daily excerpts from my workshop handout on the “Values and Ethics of Participatory Arts Practice,” then to …
According to this morning’s COVID wrapup in the New York Times, despite warnings from top health officials, Americans are leaving their homes in ever-larger numbers, urged on by #IMPOTUS and the entire kakistocracy (I looked it up: government by the worst). Meanwhile Jared Kushner is right on time suggesting that the November election may be …
A few days ago I wrote about the utter neglect of equity and wider awareness in arguments for their own funding being issued by “mainstream” arts advocates. “So what should they be saying and doing?” some readers asked. This is my answer. I’d be interested to know yours. First, a little context. There’s a persistent …
What if—as I’ve recently written—the current pandemic is a “hinge moment” in history, offering the possibility of a break from the past? What if the actions taken in response to the pandemic, especially the things that we have repeatedly been told are impossible (such as radically cutting emissions) demonstrate that another world is indeed possible? …
When I try to express how I feel these days, the image that comes to me is a knot. A big one. A Gordian knot, the kind I can slice through with a single blow from the right sword. I’m someone who usually knows what to do—right or wrong, there it almost always is. But …
Remember the TV series “Monk?” Tony Shaloub plays a brilliant and observant detective who is traumatized, reclusive yet lonely, and often ostracized on account of his extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder. He’s learned to sometimes suppress his forthrightness for others’ comfort, but he doesn’t always succeed. One recurrent trope has him laying out a crime-solving hypothesis that …
I’ve seen it a few times now, an incipient meme. “If this were a movie,” people write, “no one would believe it.” “This” of course refers to the epidemic of surreality more than the virus itself (the latter being all-too believable). Yesterday’s news, for example, #IMPOTUS tweeting “LIBERATE!” in support of right-wing protesters against public …
Here are the things that have been going through my mind: Solidarity, The Velvet Revolution, the fall of Apartheid. Why? Because each of these represents a moment in history in which a critical mass of people awakened to the truth that the regimes oppressing them were far from the permanent and unshakeable authorities portrayed in …