Part of a Greater Whole – Reflections on Intersection IV: Re/Generations

Re/Generations: Bridging the Centuries of Art & Activism    Part of a Greater Whole: Reflections on Intersection IV: Re/Generations by Caron Atlas (Part 1)    Reflections on Convergence: A Youth Perspective on Intersection IV by Jacqueline Johnson with Raul Matta (Part 2)    I Was Singing You by Alice Lovelace (Part 3)    more essays on the way

Part 1 of " Re/Generations: Bridging the Centuries of Art & Activism," essays in response to INTERSECTION IV: Re/Generations, an intergenerational, cross-cultural gathering investigating historical models and new directions in multicultural performing arts and activism. The conference/festival was organized by New WORLD Theater and took place at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, April 7-9, 2006.

I was asked to write about Intersection IV by placing New WORLD Theater’s conference in the context of an ongoing national conversation about the relationships between art, culture and social change. I have participated in (and in some cases helped to organize) many of these conversations over the years. One of the key things I have learned from them is to respect the power of the intersection – that catalytic space where art, creativity and change come together. Reducing art to a tool, or social issues to the subject matter for art, diminishes the strength and vitality of this connection. I came to Intersection with this in mind, along with some questions from my current work with the Center for Civic Participation.

• What is needed to invigorate democracy through creativity and culture?
• How can we make this work deeper and more effective?
• What connections and support would raise the bar to increase the impact of this intersection?

On the first night of the conference, New Orleans activist Curtis Muhammad added an even more fundamental dimension to my inquiry when he spoke of how people were left in New Orleans to die after the hurricane: “They were not cared about as people.” To “how do we regain our democracy?” I realized I had to add: “how do we regain our humanity?” This question echoed throughout the gathering, related both to the world at large and the way in which we do our work. For example, young activists asked how to redefine leadership in a manner that furthers principled action in all aspects of our lives. Those who grew up without their parents present – because their parents were organizers fully committed to social-justice movements – asked whether our personal relationships reflect values that are consistent with our political idealism.

The Arc of History

In the opening plenary, which was an intergenerational dialogue about art and activism, poet Alice Lovelace (currently a lead organizer for the U.S. Social Forum) spoke of “being part of a greater whole.” She and the other panelists described how this happens in many ways: by recognizing the arc of history related to art and activism; by connecting media, art and culture integrally into social movements, and by having a holistic outlook, “a 360 degree view.” They also spoke about recognizing unexpected allies, including those who don’t see themselves as activists, and pushing oneself beyond what’s comfortable and familiar to work across race, class and generation.

Keynote speaker Curtis Muhammad

As a gathering, Intersection is part of a greater whole – which in recent years included the 2003 Animating Democracy national conference in Flint, Michigan, where Grace Lee Boggs challenged us to organize the multigenerational convergence of artists, educators and activists that took place in New Orleans in 2004. The American Festival Project’s Art and Democracy gathering later that year continued that conversation, as the Alternate ROOTS annual meeting and the Hip Hop Political Convention continued the conversation of Intersection IV in the summer of 2006. Looking ahead, the United States Social Forum will keep up the momentum in 2007. The hope is that each time that we (or others) meet in different contexts and configurations there will be some cumulative residue so the conversation won’t have to start from scratch.

I have been thinking a lot recently about the arc of history for art and activism. In part it is because I just cleaned out a house with 30 years of papers in it from groups that I have been active in, including Artist Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Alliance for Cultural Democracy (ACD). In the case of the latter, the fact that so much of its history lies in people’s closets across the country has unfortunately made its history less than visible. As discussed at Intersection, documenting and archiving our history is essential if we want to tell our own stories. Seasoned community-based organizations such as Appalshop, Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) and New WORLD Theater are serious about creating archives. Nevertheless, history is handed down in many ways. I recently attended a meeting where four of us realized that we had all served on the ACD board 20 years ago, and that perhaps the organization’s greatest legacy has been in shaping many peoples’ consciousness of cultural democracy in ways that still greatly inform our work.

Developing a Consciousness

What most formed me through my experience with ACD was the ability to have an extended critical discourse about our work – one that challenged complacency and valued analysis and critical thinking. I have discovered over the years how important and difficult it is to challenge our assumptions. One of the things I most relished about being part of the American Festival Project, a coalition of activist artists, was having the opportunity for a decade-long critical dialogue. And yet having a critical dialogue about the Project itself was an ongoing challenge. The struggle of surviving as artists and cultural organizations often carries us far from our activist and creative goals, and projects become ends rather than means. Our vision can become so condensed that we cannot see beyond the short term.

Longtime cultural organizer and co-founder of the D.C. Community Coalition for Justice and Peace Luci Murphy asked Intersection participants to consider how we give and receive criticism. Recently I heard artists in Maine and Arizona describe how a lack of serious criticism impacts the rigor of their work, something I’ve heard echoed across the country. Even where criticism is present, the conventional approach of a single authority often furthers dogma, rather than enhances creativity. As part of Animating Democracy, we experimented with a dialogic model of criticism that recognizes multiple perspectives and multiple forms of knowledge, including that of the artist and his or her community. The resulting anthology, "Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art and Civic Dialogue," illustrates how who tells the story makes a significant difference in which stories get told and how they get told. This approach to criticism has influenced other efforts in the field, including this collection of essays about Intersection IV. Intersection conferences themselves have a long history of artists benefiting from critical conversations about their work with their peers.

Power Doesn't Concede Without a Struggle

A line in one of Suheir Hammad’s poems has haunted me: “I’m supposed to sleep undisturbed, especially while I am awake.” At a time when we are up against such powerful forces to keep us uninformed and unengaged, we need to use our creativity to develop our consciousness, recognizing that questions can often move us further than answers.

John O’Neal, artistic director of Junebug Productions and one of the artists featured at Intersection IV, reminded us that power does not concede without a struggle. In the opening plenary we divided into generational breakout groups to answer the question: “What is the most important issue for your generation?”. Those of us born before 1960 spoke about the very serious setbacks we have experienced in recent years in such areas as affirmative action and civil and human rights. Listening to a subsequent discussion on television between Bill Moyers and Salman Rushdie about faith, reason, art and politics reminded me that the tension between creativity and power is a necessary one, and the function of art “to speak truth to power” is essential.

It becomes quite uncomfortable, however, when this happens in our own organizations. After decades of struggling to gain some recognition and support for their work, it is not surprising that progressive artists are not ready to make way for the next generation – they want to complete the work they started. Yet these artists have begun to represent the power that won’t concede. Until we can figure out effective roles for our founders and visionaries, we will continue to struggle with the organizational transitions that were a key concern of the Intersection gathering. And, until we make the critical questioning of our assumptions an ongoing part of our process, we will replicate the power struggles we aim to oppose.

Nimble Foresight

I was struck by how difficult it was for us to move from our discussions to the creation of strategies on the final day of the conference. Perhaps it was because we didn’t have enough time, or our community and social-movement partners were not in the room with us. Perhaps it was because our thinking has become about developing projects rather than building movements or changing policies – we spend more time creating dots than connecting them. Perhaps it is because artists fear being reduced to utilitarian purposes, or because we’ve been in reactive mode so long we’ve forgotten how to strategize around a vision. Or, as Andrea Assaf, artistic director of New WORLD Theater, reflected, “perhaps it is because we are searching to employ new methods and modes that we have yet to invent.” What is clear is that while conferences may be good for consolidating strategies, it takes other ongoing processes to build them, processes that both grow out of and transcend our everyday work. They include the consistent work of being at the table, supporting other’s issues as well as our own, and taking the risk to be simultaneously imaginative, responsible to our communities and humane in our relationships.

At a meeting hosted by the Center for Rural Strategies in June 2006, journalist Al Cross spoke of the importance of being nimble and of having foresight. While he may not have intended for these recommendations to be combined, some of us became very fond of the concept of “nimble foresight.” I have begun to imagine what nimble foresight looks like at the intersection of art and activism. Nimble is being open to new ways of working, new opportunities and new allies. Foresight is being committed to developing an analysis through a dynamic process of dialogue. Nimble foresight challenges dogma to encourage empathy and imaginative vision. It is a commitment to history and cultural grounding joined with the courage and curiosity to see the world continually through new eyes. That is what open and creative spaces like the Intersection conference are all about. While they may not be the places we build our strategies, they are where we ask our difficult questions, celebrate, connect and take the creative conversation one step further.

Caron Atlas is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based consultant working in the United States and internationally to increase cultural and civic engagement, develop creative support systems and connect community practice with policy making.

Original CAN/API publication: November 2006