I have long felt that two threads of my life- art making, and action taking around environmental issues (albeit low key), have been separate, compartmentalised.
I recently attended a symposium on art and environmental and climate change at The Burton at Bideford in Devon. It was based around the work of Bristol printmaker and artist Emma Stibbon and her stunning exhibition there. Much of her work is based on travels to the polar regions and the melting ice and glaciers there, as well as sites nearer to home that are threatened with higher sea levels becoming the norm.
I went because I thought it would fire me up, give me some ideas about how to entangle my art making and activism and let me meet ‘my tribe’. It excelled on all counts and was a brilliantly inspiring day. It also got me thinking…
I’m a landscape artist, surely the ideas I’m exposed to must influence my art and vice versa- and does this need to be explicit and intentional or will it happen anyway?
Emma Stibbon’s work is not explicitly ‘about’ environmental issues. Her drawings and large scale paintings and prints can be viewed solely as landscapes and seascapes. And yet, could we say that documenting, exposing and bringing awareness to melting ice and rising tides is a protest of sorts?
In fact, what can art do in the face of the climate emergency (a question asked during the symposium)? Are we talking community engagement or the comment and opinion of fine art? Are we talking about art that uses the environment as it’s materials or bringing the environment into people’s homes and our institutions in whatever form?
Does ‘environmental art’ need to be explicit about it’s message, or can it approach issues from the side, obliquely? What makes the most difference, and does art need to make a tangible difference or does it seep in and around the culture, slowly changing it over time.
One of the wonders of art for me has always been that it is outside of politics- overhead, beyond, out of sight, way over the horizon. Art can be completely of it’s time and yet not reference one single contemporary ‘thing’ from the year it was made, nothing to date it.
But the artist and artwork does act as a node, a meeting spot for everything that has come before and will come. For all the experiences, culture and influences of of the artist- the artist and work of art are totally unique and can never be made again in that particular moment. So in that way, it is totally documenting it’s time. Even if it is turning away form current issues, the ‘modern’ and contemporary, it is still a product of that time, place and person.
Can the act of making art, the paying of attention, the refusal to despair, be radical and a protest in their own right?
It seems to me that there are several ways of turning the dial with your art. The following artists are not necessarily my favourites, but artists whose approach to activism I admire.
Subject matter is the most obvious and explicit one. Grayson Perry comes to mind when I think of this. I was not a fan until recently, when the Arnolfini Art Centre in Bristol hosted a retrospective of his work, and I found his large-scale tapestries and banners very moving. He has moved the conversations forward around his subject matters of working class Britain and masculinity. I love his use of applied arts to bring art to audiences who might be intimidated by traditional art mediums and contexts and his throughly down to earth stance on making art.
Kurt Jackson has been making landscape art for decades and uses it to bring attention to biodiversity and the landscapes and seascapes that he wanders. His subject matter is that which we wish to maintain and cherish.
Both these artists also use their fame and influence to start conversations about the subjects that mean something to them as well, showing that to be a successful, possibly wealthy, artist is another way to make an impact.
Another way might be the choice of material or medium of the artist. Printmaking has long been seen as an art form for protest- it’s ability to make multiple images, fast, it’s constraint in colour and form often producing simple, bold images that everyone can understand. The posters of Paris in 1968 might be good examples of this.
In Edo era Japan, the ubiquity and affordability of woodblock prints meant many many people had works of art in their houses- cultural change could seep quietly into domestic life. It was also a form of art that could be viewed quietly, individually, alone- a different experience to that of a viewer in a grand stately home or art gallery viewing 6 ft oil paintings.
The use of collage and ordinary everyday objects in Dada collages and the Arte Povera movement in Italy both changed our idea of what art is and could be, and made viewers pay attention to what was around them.
Sometimes a way to make a difference is, solely, to make art in a certain context. The Gee’s Bend Quilters come to mind here- making with what they have, under difficult circumstances throughout the 20th century in the American South. Refusing to limit themselves and their art to their situation. In fact, any form of creativity made under circumstances where it would be easier not to, is a form of quiet protest.
I think I am of the mind that art does not need to be explicit to make a difference or change a mind. It lives above and beyond the everyday and current affairs and can therefore find ways into the mind of a person via different channels. It’s impact is often difficult to measure and may not be large. Often in hindsight, or cumulatively, it changes the hearts and minds of the makers and the viewers or users. And that can give us hope, surely.