Last night, about a dozen intrepid souls gathered in the Tap Room to discuss the possibilities of public engagement at RISD. The scheduling was unfortunate in that Jim Drain was giving a lecture at the same hour... and it was a rainy night. And it was in the midst of mid-terms or post mid-terms.... And yet, I'm a little disappointed by the low turn out.
Actually, I'm disappointed by something else. Well, "disappointed" is probably the wrong word. I'm pondering something else.
In the past week, in conversations with undergraduate students, I've been confronted with a sense of incredulity when I've suggested that students become involved with the community -- or make work in the public sphere -- at the same time as they are enrolled as RISD students. The question, although phrased in many ways, is always the same: "How can you find the time given RISD's impossible schedule."
Let me preface my next thoughts. I don't think everyone at RISD should be doing public work. Some people won't want to and some probably just don't have the affinity or the predisposition. That's fine. Yet, I also hear that people would like to be connecting with a world beyond the campus in significant ways -- but there's no time. It's the "no time" thing I want to address.
We make time or those things that matter to us and learn to manage or prioritize those things that don't.
Last night we discussed procrastination a bit. We talked about the way it can be easy to get sucked into TV "while thinking about working in the studio." While everyone is different, I know I get sucked into TV for three reasons: 1. there's something compelling in the world (like the current election); 2. I'm completely exhausted (like when I have the flu); and 3. when I'm avoiding tasks that don't matter to me (like when I'm thinking about doing something someone has told me to do but about which I have no passion).
I know it's possible to integrate significant and meaningful community practice with a RISD education. I did it when I was a student (and when far fewer faculty "got" the value of it than there are today) and I know many RISD graduates (and current students) who are doing it.
The language of the "impossible" -- as in "it's impossible given RISD's curriculum" -- does two things: 1.) it provides a polite way of saying "I don't want to do this, I like things the way they are"; and 2.) it inhibits others from believing that they might be able to do something outside the culture of the curriculum.
There's nothing wrong with committing oneself to a rigorous and intensive life in the studio. However, it's not the only way that people build a rigorous art practice. The language of "the impossible" simply limits the possibilities of creative practice within this community. How do we move beyond the language of the impossible to an acknowledgment of infinite possibility and creativity?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Another way of looking at this dilemma is: are we sure that the university is the best setting for engaging with the public? I would tend to say yes - college is such a formative period when people are relatively open to experience the world in an expansive way. Professors and mentors and peers can introduce you to ideas that might, as we heard last night, totally redirect your creative direction. Passions you discover may be with you for the rest of your life.
But at the same time there are ways in which the artificial time-frames imposed by the academic calendar can rush collaborative processes or frustrate the opportunity for longer-term engagement. What if we were to focus on introducing people to the ideas and methodologies of public engagement rather than ask of them to become community artists right away. Might that lessen some of the hesitancy in the "this is impossible" response?
In listening to the panelists comments, I was struck by a few commonly shared sentiments. I offer these up as a form of reflection on what are some of the individual characteristics that motivate artists and designers to branch out into a publicly engaged practice:
* A sense of curiosity that leads you to seek out ideas and inspiration from unlikely sources. Andrew Oesch referred to this as his desire while at RISD to "be any number of different things," while Laurencia Strauss referred to herself as an "eavesdropper" on others' conversations and ways of making.
* A willingness to release notions of authorship. While this may come more easily to designers and architects who are used to working in teams, all of the panelists spoke to that mushy place where the line between artist and non-artist gets blurred. This requires a degree of compromise, coupled with the trust that something cohesive will still be communicated through the collaborative process.
* Self-identification with the role of dot-connector, point person, or facilitator of creative processes and conversations.
These characteristics all seem to fly in the face of the traditional notion of artistic creation as a solitary act. Obviously we are moving more and more away from this mode of thinking - it might be interesting for the Office to think of how we can support initiatives on campus that further rupture that old way of thinking. It is all a subtle shift!
Post a Comment