What is Art Activism post by Juan Ferreira

         In the reading of the book, in Chapter 1 there is a quote stated by a civil rights activist that caught my attention while talking about “the power of art” and a line before her quote in the book. “Art allows us to imagine things that are otherwise unimaginable, and then to live them. As activist Audre Lorde continues: “Poetry is not only a dream and vision, it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundation for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before” (page 26). This chapter is specifically about the power of art and its major impact in our lives. Art allows us to say things that can’t be said, and has the power to captivate an audience. Also able to give form to abstract emotions and feelings that can be communicated with other people. As the writer Jorge Luis Borges summarizes in the same chapter and says art can be turned into something which can last in a man’s memory, which breaks down the impact it can have on one person at a time.

The second quote is an image printed in my head that the reading discusses which also depicts artistic activism in a very physical manner. “This is not a scene from the streets of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria, but a creative protest staged by Iraq Veterans.” (page 36). Referring to a time in 2007 where “Just walking around talking and marching wasn’t getting the point across”. They wanted to bring attention to the violence the war was creating by staging a man tied up and getting yelled at on the floor by a group of soldiers crowding the man’s helpless body. This is indeed a creative form of activism that can be displayed as art because they are just in a form of acting.

What is Art Activism? As the book states, Artistic Activism is hard to define. “Sometimes it looks more like art, and sometimes it looks more like activism.” To me, Art Activism is using the world around you(can be other people, creative utensils like pencils, paint, or props like a cane, or a hammer) and using these things as a bridge to reach an activist movement and catch the attention of the bystanders, or neighborhood. As I previously stated in the last paragraph, an example could be when the book is listing a whole bunch of activist occurrences in a row and land on the protest created by the Iraq Veterans. When these Veterans have had enough of the war in Iraq during the year 2007 and you can see them protesting using a street clothed, defenseless man and victimizes him on the floor tied up with a bag over his head and a group of men circling him and causing havoc. I can imagine many other protests similar to this one during these times, to get the attention of officials or the public. This is an example of Art Activism because they are using the form of acting (artform) to perform in their activist scene to catch attention from the public eye. Below is displayed the artwork from the book (page 37) where you can see a soldier yelling to the public “Clear the perimeter!” where they would have no choice but to obey unless they want to end up hurt or receive punishment against their own will.