For those of us in the arts and culture spaces, we have some idea of what it means for an artist to have a “socially engaged practice”. There are many definitions, such as this one put forth by the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, which reads:
Socially engaged practice takes on the systemic social, environmental, and economic challenges of our day. Sam Fox School faculty, students, and staff work with individuals, organizations, governments, and communities, especially in St. Louis, through our research, teaching, and practice. This includes community-engaged teaching, service programs, research projects, and more.
Or there’s this definition via Wikipedia:
Socially engaged art aims to create social and/or political change through collaboration with individuals, communities, and institutions in the creation of participatory art.
However, there’s nothing like having a Black woman clarify things for you. In this case, the words of Koyo Kouoh, the founding artistic director of RAW Materials Company, get to the heart of the matter. For her, it’s about working with “artists who embed a thinking system that is political, or that addresses politics.” She wants to avoid, at all costs, art that crosses that thin line and becomes only illustrative of society’s problems.
Check out this three-minute video, courtesy of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, in which she lays out her point of view:
In the communities she works in, societal problems are in your face. They can’t be ignored: The artists aren’t referencing on abstract issues. And this points to the power of–and need for–imagination. If you’re able to embed critique and not just be, in Kouoh’s words, “illustrative”, it means that you’ve at least started the work of imagining what a better world might be.
All of which takes us back to the conceit of Robin Kelley’s Freedom Dreams.
