iart 07 agitating Flashcards
Agitating: Noise, Politics, and
Protests
Focus: What role do artists play in
activism?
Does conflict have a place in the arts?
Plus: globalization, art collectives,
farmers as artists, and regional/rural/local issues
Wendell Berry, author/farmer
Connections between land, people, environment, culture, protest, and art
From “Damage”
It used to be that I could think of art as a refuge from such troubles. From the imperfections of life, one could take refuge in the perfections of art. One could read a good poem––or better, write one.
Art was what was truly permanent, therefore what truly mattered. …
I am no longer able to think that way. That is because I now live in my subject. My subject is my place in the world, and I live in my place.
“Damage”
“Damage”
- The shift of art: from somewhere else to “living in it”
- “An art that heals and protects its subject is a
geography of scars.”
Berry’s subject/art:
- His farm
- The people he interacts with
- The larger eco-system/environment
Wendell Berry, author/farmer
- Activism/Protest
- With other writers and activists, sat in the
governor of Kentucky’s office as a form of
protest against mountain-top removal - Mountain-top removal: a form of coal mining that is damaging environment and harming the lives of people living in Kentucky and West Virginia
- Much of our energy in Ohio comes from this and other forms of coal (over 87%)
Hayden Caruth/Wendell Berry
- Caruth poem: “On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam”
- Berry commentary: “A Poem of Difficult Hope”
Berry commentary: “A Poem of Difficult Hope”
- Points to the struggle between art and protest
- Q: “What is the use of saying ‘There is no use’?”
- Futility? Despair? Hope?
- Points to the struggle between art and protest
- Q: “What is the use of saying ‘There is no use’?”
“A Poem of Difficult Hope” -barry
“Much protest is naïve; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such an improvement does not come.
Protesters who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success,
there would be little protest of any durability or significance.
History simply affords too little evidence that anyone’s individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”
Social Justice and Art
• Appalachian culture and community:
– Appalshop (Kentucky)
• Focus on Appalachian music, stories, art
• Plus: poverty, education, coal mining and
environmental destruction
Highlander Research and Education
Center (Tennessee)
• Rosa Parks did her training in civil disobedience here
Social Justice and Art
“At Highlander, I found out for the first time in
my adult life that this could be a unified society,
that there was such a thing as people of differing races and backgrounds meeting together in
workshops and living together in peace and
harmony. It was a place I was very reluctant to
leave. I gained there strength to persevere in my
work for freedom, not just for blacks but all
oppressed people.” –Rosa Parks
Art, Community, and Activism
sam/rob
Sam Seidel : Hip Hop Genius (Rhode Island)
– Rhode Island
– Hip Hop as a teaching tool, a creative practice that can be translated to other aspects of culture and society
– Husslington Post
