Art

There is no universally accepted definition of art. Although commonly used to describe

something of beauty, or a skill which produces an aesthetic result, there is no clear line
in principle between (say) a unique piece of handmade sculpture, and a mass-produced
but visually attractive item. We might say that art requires thought - some kind of
creative impulse.
Social Artistry: is the attempt to address or recognize a particular social issue using art
and creativity. Social artists are people who use creative skills to work with people or
organizations in their community to affect change. While a traditional artist uses their
creative skills to express their take on the world, a social artist puts their skills to use to
help promote and improve communities. Thus, the main aim of a social artist is to
improve society as a whole and to help other people find their own means of creative
expression.
Social artists may address issues such as youth alienation or the breakdown of
communities. Most commonly, the social artist will address these problems by helping
people to express themselves and find their voice, or by bringing people together and
using art to help them to foster an understanding of each other. Social artistry can
incorporate several different art forms including theatre, poetry, music and visual art.
There are many programs for youth around the world. Sadly, many of these programs
fall short of achieving their aims. Bringing about change in society is not an easy task.
Lack of engagement or poor leadership can often result in failure to impact on the lives
of the young people involved.
We have found that a committed social artist can be the spark and the glue to drive
genuine change. Each creative social artists can affect the lives of hundreds of young
people every year. Thats thousands of young people in the course of a lifespan. Given
this broad impact, identifying and training social artists has become the root of our
mission to inspire social change.

Social artist

A social artist is someone who is part artist, part social-change agent, part facilitator and
part visionary. The social artist draws on artistic practice, group dynamics and creative
ideas to facilitate change.

Some social artists are already skilled youth facilitators who add an understanding of
creative process and the use of the arts to their practice. Others are artists, musicians,
poets or actors who decide to use their skills to run programs for youth. Still others are
visionary leaders who obtain artistic and facilitation skills to bring new ideas into the
public sphere. Social artists possess three key abilities:
1. deep listening,
2. speaking from the heart,
3. and being fully present.
They are catalysts for innovation and action on behalf of all. We believe that the 21st
century calls for the kind of creative leadership skills that social artists offer.

Political Arts:

A strong relationship between the arts and politics, particularly between various kinds of
art and power, occurs across historical epochs and cultures. As they respond to
contemporaneous events and politics , the arts take on political as well as social
dimensions, becoming themselves a focus of controversy and even a force of political
as well as social change.

History of Art and Social and Political change

According to Groys, "Art has its own power in the world, and is as much a force in the
power play of global politics today as it once was in the arena of cold war politics".
Pertaining to such politically-intractable phenomena as the Modern conflicts in the
Middle East, however, some artists and social critics believe that "art is useless as a tool
for political change. There are, nevertheless, examples where artists employ art in the
service of political change.

Connotation of Social Arts

The Social Impact of the Arts offers an intellectual history of claims made over time for
the value, function and impact of the arts in Western societies. With chapters on
corruption, catharsis, education and 'art for art's sake', as well as number of other key
themes, the book examines the many different ways in which writers have attempted to
articulate the social impact of the arts. It also relates contemporary policy debates to a
history of ideas, making a timely contribution to public debate about the value of the arts
in modern societies.

 The arts attract visitors (art as export industry):

Tourists visit a community primarily in order to attend an arts event (alternatively,
tourists may prolong a trip in order to attend an arts event). They will spend directly on
the arts event and may also shop, eat at a local restaurant and/or stay at a hotel in the
community. To the extent that these tourist dollars are spent by the arts organization as
well as the stores, restaurants and hotels on local goods and services, the dollars
brought in to the community for an arts event will have indirect multiplier effects on the
local economy.
The arts attract residents and businesses:
The density of arts organizations and prevalence of arts events may play a role in
attracting residents and businesses to relocate to a community by improving its image
and making it more appealing. This is especially true for attracting highly skilled, high
wage residents, who will have a larger economic impact than less skilled people.
Businesses, especially those that employ highly trained mobile personnel, may consider
the presence of art venues when making relocation decisions.
The presence of the arts may work to enhance the impact of tax incentives for business
location decisions. High concentrations of artists or high-skilled workers may produce
agglomeration effects, where businesses especially those in the fast-growing creative
industries are drawn to an area because of the availability of creative talent or high
skilled workers, and vice versa.
The arts attract investments:
By improving a communitys image, people may feel more confident about investing in
that community. So for example, people might more likely to buy property in an area that
they feel is up-and coming because of the presence of the arts. Or, banks may be
more likely to lend to businesses in areas perceived as more secure and stable, and so
on.
Claim: The arts are good for individuals Claims that the arts are good for individuals
take many forms. The arts have been said to improve health, mental well-being,
cognitive functioning, creative ability and academic performance.
The arts improve individual health:
Either engaging in creative activity or simply attending some kind of artistic event
appears to improve physical health .This could be due in part to its ability to relieve
stress. Also, arts engagement widens and strengthens social bonds, which also
improves health
The arts improve psychological well-being:

Attending arts events may be stimulating and relieve stress, hence leading to improved
happiness or life satisfaction. Active participation in the arts leads, in addition, to
improved self concept and sense of control over ones life. There are different reasons
why this might be so. Lots of the anecdotal evidence comes from community arts
programs, some of which are geared towards poor, marginal or at-risk populations.
This is backed up by the little and poor quality survey data that do exist. To the extent
that the creation and completion of some arts project provides an opportunity to such
participants to succeed and gain some positive public recognition, it will improve their
sense of control over their life.
The Coming Up Taller report (Weitz 1996) provides concrete examples of some of these
mechanisms. The report identifies arts-training programs targeted at at-risk youth and
seeks to understand why these programs work. At least two of the programs involved
working with sentenced juvenile offenders. One program taught musical theater; the
other painting. Both programs appeared to enhance the self-esteem of their
participants, because they learned new skills, found that they had undiscovered talents,
and received positive recognition from peers and others when they perform or exhibit
their work.
Learning new skills may also improve their position on the job market. For example, in
addition to learning singing, dancing and acting, participants in the music theater
program also learn about the technical side of producing a play, such as lighting, setdesign and sound. Also, performing a play or doing other kinds of artistic activity can
provide a means of learning that children find much more fun and engaging. As a result
they will learn and absorb the material better.

The connotation of Political Arts

21st Century Art and Politics June 24, 2015, The International Festival of Arts and Ideas
launched its program last week in New Haven, Connecticut. The festival is a 15-day
long program of performing arts, lectures and discussions that celebrate artists and
thinkers from around the world. Yesterday, the INTAKE interns were there to support the
Arts as an imperative vehicle for positive social change and a catalyst for international
diplomatic understanding.
The event was sponsored by Yale Center for British Art and was held at the Iseman
Theatre at Yale University. The event began with Director Arts for the British Council,
Graham Sheffield, leading a lecture on 21 st Century Art and Politics. The British
Council is the UKs international organization for cultural relations and educational
opportunities. Its aim is to create international cultural understanding, thus making the
way of life and philosophy of British people more appreciated and understood. They
believe cultural understanding of the UK gives the opportunity for sympathetic

appreciation of British foreign policy and ultimately betters diplomatic relations.

Sheffields division of the organization concerns itself with the Arts- be it literature,
music, theatre, fine arts, etc. This division of the British Council trusts that the Arts can
be used as a means to build friendliness, understanding, and ultimately harmony
between the UK and foreign nations.
Sheffield started his lecture by describing the entanglement between art and politics and
how recently there has been political controversy over artistic expression. He noted,
however, that art has always been political, giving an example of The Guernica by Pablo
Picasso circa 1937. This anti-war painting was a response to the bombings of Guernica,
Spain by German warplanes as a result of the insistence of Spanish nationalists led by
Francisco Franco. Consequently, this piece of art brought worldwide awareness to the
Spanish Civil War.
More recently, he added insight on Edinburghs most controversial show: Exhibit B, a
human zoo. In Africa, African slaves were placed in cages beginning in the
19th century and until the First World War as a means to legitimize colonial policies.
These black tribes people were brought all over Africa and displayed in villages to show
colonial power. Exhibit B by Brett Bailey, a controversial art director, tried to undermine
the premise of the human zoos by replacing it with powerful scenes of racism and
colonialism. For example, a part of the exhibit shows a woman standing alone in a room
with the name Found object, criticizing European Union policies towards modern
African asylum seekers. Bailey believed that his art exhibition would bring to light the
racial profiling, objectification, and dehumanization of black people it was undoubtedly
a social and political analysis of current worldwide institutionalized and systematic
racism.
The response to this art piece was mostly a feeling of discomfort and disturbance.
Some have even voiced that it was completely and undeniably racist. Anti-racists
campaigners in Berlin questioned the authority of a white director undertaking the story
of black exploitation. It is clear that art not only promotes political and social awareness
but deals with controversial topics like cultural appropriation.
After Sheffields lecture the event was opened up to a panel of speakers. Paul Smith
moderated the discussion; he is the Director of the British Council in the United States.
Sheffield, Antonio Aiello and Afa Dworkin participated in the panel and discussed further
the influence art has on politics. Aiello is the Content Director and Web Editor at PEN
American center and Dworkin is the artistic and executive director at Sphinx Music and
on the board of directors at INTAKE.

Dworkin spoke about her work at Sphinx and its commitment to serve underprivileged
blacks and Latinos through classical music and to diversify the audience of classical
music as well. Although the efforts of Sphinx are great she acknowledged that there is
still a great amount of work to do to make classical music inclusive to people of color by
having minorities in professional orchestras, conservatories, and even in the audience.
Dworkin also mentioned, music is a universal language that is a unifying force. She
spoke about how music is an art form that transcends all boundaries because it is
practiced and listened to all over the world. Furthermore, she believes that music brings
people together more than any other art form. She was an inspiration to hear and was
certainly well versed in her field.
We were very glad to have been able to hear and meet Ms. Afa Dworkin in New Haven
for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas as well as the other panelists. We thank
the festival and Yale University for supporting the Arts and we also thank Sphinx for all
that you do for us at INTAKE.

Reference:
http://pyeglobal.org/social-artists/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_artistry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_arts_and_politics