“Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” Ursula K. Le Guin
But what can my creative work do?
First, what it does for you.
It is a creation from you. If it doesn’t match how you see yourself, then fix it. Start making projects that reflect who you really are. That means knowing who you really are, and living it. No more hiding. No more compartmentalising what you create and who you are outside of your creations. Where are you?
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Mahatma Gandhi
Second, what it does for others.
It works as a feedback loop, communicating to others to either stay naive, to get back in their box, to stretch a bit, or to generate their own worlds. It doesn’t matter what you make, your creative work is doing one of these things.
If you’re not thinking about what you’re saying, and trying to say something with your work, then you’re either helping them remain unaware (and therefore not living their own life), or scaring them to toe the line.
“The quality of results produced by any system depends on the quality of awareness from which people in the system operate.” Otto Scharmer
Third, what it does for societies.
Your works lay the ground for massive change. They can facilitate openness to change on a massive scale, or help preserve the system as it is.
“[I]deologies and political movements which lessen the resistance to an infrastructural change increase the likelihood that new infrastructure will be propagated and amplified instead of dampened and extinguished. Furthermore, the more direct and emphatic the structural and superstructural support of the infrastructural changes, the swifter and the more pervasive the transformation of the whole system.” Marvin Harris
You have been told this before. You will hear this again.
“As an artist, creator and dreamer of this world, we ask you not to be discouraged by what you see but to use your own lives, and by extension your art, as vehicles for the construction of peace.” Herbie Hancock
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