What Art Can Do: introduce an artist’s mindset to complex problems
How can art play a significant role in the problems that we are facing in the world today?
The problems the world is facing today cannot be solved in conventional ways. By looking at the world with an artist’s mind set, we can break through thought patterns, find new approaches and perspectives, even when the situation seems hopeless.
What are we waiting for? We can eradicate poverty, make the change to sustainable sources of energy and stop climate change. The solutions are there, but we cannot seem to find the key to breaking through the paralysing systems and fixed patterns that shape our will and determine how we behave. Church and political leaders, even multinationals, no longer hold much sway. We appear to be losing ourselves in short-sighted bickering and firefighting
Society is desperate for new ideals. Creative and artistic professionals can play a significant part in the great challenges we are facing today through imagination, beauty and resourcefulness.
To build a bridge between art and world issues, I am working with a team on the platform What Art Can Do. Here, we are collecting art projects that make an impact on the 17 UN goals, such as combatting climate change, inequality and poverty.
What art does not do is solve problems, illustrate or promote a vision, but it does provide a way of seeing more clearly and asking better questions. It is through more insightful questions that scientists, experts and artists find each other, not getting lost in complexity or avoiding it, but finding a practical approach through face to face interaction.
