Convenings
Past Learning Exchange Reports:
Minneapolis, March 8–10, 2002
Andrea Assaf
2002
Artist Questions
Below is an extensive list of questions generated by the artists who responded to our call for input in designing the Minneapolis Learning Exchange. Names have been removed to respect confidentiality, but we have tried to retain the original intent and spirit of the questions. We took the liberty of compiling them under general headings where we saw themes emerging; some of them directly informed the design of sessions.
Aesthetics and Dialogue
Our organization holds the conviction that dialogue and/or the desirable effects of civic dialogue are inherent in our artistic process. In addition to facilitated sessions, what other kinds of dialogue are happening for projects in their process?
If dialogue is part of an aesthetic strategy, what is the artist's role in directing, managing or editing the dialogue and to what end (civic, artistic)? To what degree are projects using aesthetic strategies?
How do I find the balance between the explicitness of the issues that dialogue facilitators want to raise and the implicitness of my aesthetic? Should the intent for civic dialogue affect my choice of what to put in the art? Can implicitness be a powerful choice in relation to the intent for civic dialogue?
What is the power of metaphor? When is metaphor more powerful than explication? What is the unique power of art, or of specific mediums (especially the non-verbal: dance, music, imagery) to create the potential for a different kind of dialogue?
When does the ART cause a breakthrough in the public discussion? Does abstraction or not being transparent make the dialogue get stuck?
What are the possibilities, various models, of collaboration between art & dialogue? What are some examples of innovative dialogue experiences that retain aesthetic high benchmarks while allowing high level participation by non self-defined artists?
Personal to Public/Private to Civic
Arts comes closer to our soul than anything else; how do you make the transition from that heartful, soulful place to the civic issue?
When a work is most powerful, I am speechless at the end and need private time to reflect before entering public dialogue; what are experimental ways of approaching immediate dialogue? What do we do with that moment when the lights come up? How do we make the TRANSITION from emotional to rational response?
Is something lost in switching back to head space? How do we deal with, stay in, or honor the heartspace? What is the relationship between thought and feeling? How can we re-think the assumption that emotion is private, not public, or that public discourse equals rational discourse, so that we don’t treat them as a duality, polemic, or hierarchy? What is the public space of emotion?
How do the passions of the artist’s work offer an opportunity for dialogue facilitators to begin or move from? How can we open up feeling and thinking, and encourage people to articulate from that space?
In a society where most people feel like they don’t get heard enough, are excluded historically from the public or civic realm, how do we move from private to public? How do we deal with how hard it is to help people admit their process of change in a public space?
How do we seize the moment, if audiences need to talk when dialogue activity hasn’t been scheduled? How can organizations be more flexible and prepared to enable that to happen?
Inclusion/Overcoming Divisions
How do artists and community organizers work together to challenge local paradigms of inclusion when project leaders may inadvertently be inheritors or representatives of the challenging issue of exclusion?
How do we bring opposing factions together for dialogue? If one side of the issue perceives the other side is participating, they’ll think this isn’t the place for them. How can we overcome the strong we/they attitudes present between different groups of people? How can the art, or the dialogue, break this down?
How do we ensure that regular folks, “laypeople” who are invested in the issue, are there for the artistic work and for the dialogue (not just the intelligentsia)?
What is the "community organizer" perspective on approaches to widening the spectrum of people with whom we're engaging in dialogue? What effective strategies for inclusion are out there from a non-arts perspective?
Insider-Outsider
What processes help local tensions surface safely with outside artists and inside leaders or community partners?
How do we make the best use of the outsider artist or dialogue facilitator? They can be mistrusted and respected at the same time. How do we maximize the opportunity of outsider status and minimize the tensions related to being from the outside?
When communities expect the artist to have all the answers, how do we get the community to recognize that they have the answers within? What facilitation strategies are artists and dialogue specialists using to draw out local knowledge and empower participants?
Time: how deep we can expect to go in the time period of a workshop, residency, or project?
What’s the legacy and sustainability of this work? As an ethical issue, we’re questioning the residency model in which the artist comes in and leaves. What are we leaving behind? What are the ethical implications of an outsider coming into a community? Who gets to leave?
Neutrality/Multipartiality
Questioning the dynamic between three forces: civic dialogue, artistic intent, and advocacy. Can we facilitate a dialogue in which we advocate, or at least imply advocacy of, a particular position? Does facilitation have to be based in a position of neutrality? If we are taking a position, can we effectively facilitate the dialogue?
If issue-based art, or an artistic process, is to be the locus/focus of a dialogue, how neutral or plural does the art have to be? Is it possible to be neutral; can art be neutral?
If the intent is to bring multiple voices to a project, what is the role of aesthetic choice? What if the strongest aesthetic choice is not to balance all voices equally? When the work itself is taking a position, but not explicitly—a position is inherent in the framing, positioning, editing, and aesthetic, structural or documentation choice. How do we look at the implicit?
I’m struggling with the tensions between art by committee vs. art by the artist, or telling a good story vs. trying to get everyone’s point of view in When the purpose is consciousness-raising, where’s the line between putting too much in and not being clear enough? How do I frame the relevant issues, and focus on what’s pressing?
I’d like to explore the word "provocative" as it applies to creating art with dialogue in mind. Do we seek to provoke in ways that go beyond other kinds of artistic processes? What are we provoking and what are the responsibilities that go along with provocation?
How are our artistic choices shaped by our audiences? How do our understanding and assumptions about our audience's values affect our work, especially when we know we'll be engaging them in civic dialogue?
What is the link between effective arts-based civic dialogue and civic action, mobilization, or social change? If the arts provide new ways of getting people to talk about important issues, how do we leverage that, not squander it?
Documentation/Evaluation
How do we find, excavate, and articulate the civic in the dialogue aspects of our artistic work How do we make this visible, communicate about it, and document it?
Sometimes the dialogue in the artistic process doesn’t sound civic, but the effects in the community are civic. If the outcome or impact is comparable, does it matter which way you do it? How do we measure civic impact?
How do we document kinds of dialogue, other than facilitated sessions, that are happening for projects in the artmaking process?
How do we explain the value of what we do? How do we distill the complexity of this work into two paragraphs, to describe it to people who don’t do this kind of work?
How do we make evaluation a meaningful process that helps us understand the artistic and civic outcomes of the work? How did it stack up to intent? How does one step lead to the next? How can evaluation help us make decisions along the way? How will I know if civic intents, interests were met?
What innovative strategies for process documentation are Lab groups using?
When is it okay to adapt methodologies? When do I need to respect a particular techniques as they were originally designed, adapt them? It hasn’t been an issue working in my own communities, but more requests to write about it have given me pause about how to characterize my work, how to credit others.
Story/Narrative/Testimony
I’m trying very hard not to betray the trust of interviewees in my project. How much leeway do I have with interview material? How many ways can I manipulate the material for "dramatic purposes without exploiting it or making it come out contrary to what the subject intended?
