“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush-fires of freedom in the minds of men.”
-Samuel Adams
(Rise of the New World Activist p.1)
Art Activism itself could be considered the art form most interested in the human condition. Unlike the contemporary idea of philanthropy, where people are mainly required to collect money and send it to an organization, then forget about it, activism tends to aim for a specific motive or idea that needs to be changed regarding the rights of humans or other causes. According to Michael Shank in his paper Redefining the Movement: Art Activism; he states that in order to make activism work, activists need to change the hearts and minds of the people. Shank believes that Art has the right tools to do just that.
What most of us must be involved in – whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do—not only has to make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world. (Shank, 532)
To read Shank's article, go to this website:
According to Shank there are two targets that the art activist aims for: they aim for the powerful organizations or powerful social orders or they target the powerless organizations or marginalized movements. The main goal of the first aim is to challenge and destabilize the large corporations. The goal of the second target is to unify and to strengthen the powerless movement. The art activist has four strategies to get what they need accomplished: The first is to wage conflict nonviolently.
One current example of this is an online print community called Occuprint, which is calling artists and designers to create posters in favor of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and printing their work. In all of these Images the artists enhance the conflict that is already in existence, but are using the emotions of the Occupy Movement to further rally them together and to help encourage them in the task they have ahead of them.
All Day Every Day by Cannon Hill Eat the Rich by Christy C Road On Our Watch by Mario Klingemann
The second strategy for art activists to get what they need accomplished is to reduce direct violence. One artist who is located in Boston, Massachusetts has opened a Facebook page dedicated to artists against abuse. There her goal is to collect and show pieces made by artists depicting any kind of abuse, whether it is toward man, woman or child. She calls her page, “Artists Against Sexual Abuse”. Her facebook page is:
Emotional Abuse Over Protection Empty
The third strategy for art activists is to transform relationships. Their aim in transforming relationships is to restore justice, heal trauma and transform conflict. A group of artists who call themselves “Art for Change” have created a website with their art dedicated to the specific causes they have chosen to fight for. “Art becomes a political act, a conscious effort to facilitate and participate in social change. If we want respect, love and beauty among others, and us we must actively promote it through our art” (Art for Social Change). Their Website is:
She is a Hero The Rhythem of Life has a Lovely Heart Beat Shared Fruits Should be Televised
By Rini Hartman
The final strategy is to build capacity. What the artists attempts to do is meet the needs and rights through education, training, research and evaluation. A fairly fresh French art photographer who calls himself J.R. has been traveling to war-torn or desperately poor nations, photographing the local people there and then pasting the images on walls, roofs of houses, or any public surface he can find. A particular project that he did was called “Women are Heroes” where he photographed women to praise the those who tend to be the target in conflict. To read more about JR, go to this website:
The negative side of art activism, or in activism altogether, is that the activist can become disillusioned. When this happens the activist will try and wage conflict as a last resort. When conflict occurs, it can lead to violence, which can be a deterrent rather than help the cause that they have been fighting for. These activists have been known to hijack “sacred symbols to inflict harm to the social order’s world view as an act of revenge in response to the perceived harm inflicted on the powerless” (Shank, 542).
Regardless of the negative side-effects that can occur in art activism, or what cause these art activists might be fighting for, their purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the public. Activists must create a mass amount of people to be able to get the work done, and artists have the capacity to do just that. In regards to global change, art activists have a tall order ahead of them. But no matter how seemingly impossible one’s task might be, it is up to the artist to try and tackle it by doing what they do best.
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