Some artists and art lovers alike cringe when they encounter the buzzwords of the 9-to-5 business world encroaching on the sacred territory of art, while others seek for their artwork to have not just meaning and aesthetic value, but impact and results.
Sarajevo artist Alma Suljević, for example, creates work that isn’t limited to raising awareness of the deadly impact of landmines after the Bosnian War. Instead, she began by mapping and marking landmines and sharing the resulting documents in art exhibits. Later, she entered the minefields and did the work of clearing landmines and sold the decontaminated minefield soil both as documentation of this work and in order to fund additional efforts to eliminate landmines in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through her work and activism, the actual number of landmines in her country has decreased.
Though I would never ask for all arts to be results-oriented (buy me a beer sometime to hear me rant against prescriptive art critics like Clement Greenburg), some artists create, design and perform work that, either in itself or through its dissemination, provokes a change that is perceptible — even measurable. Additionally, organizations that award and distribute grants to artists and art programs often include inquiries about audience and impact in their applications ― either as a perfunctory note or as a driving motivation.
Given that the mission of ChangingMedia is “creative solutions for social change,” it makes sense to focus not just on art or even community art, but specifically artists who are similarly innovative and results-oriented. In future columns, I’ll share not only art and artists, but also consider and question what impact means in this area of the art world and how it can be measured. I look forward to this discussion and the opportunity to highlight artists like Suljević who, through frustration with the status quo or Utopian inspiration, push their work to make the world a better place.
PHOTO CREDIT. Photo by Flickr user Thierry Ehrmann.
