Art creates an analogy

Art can be fascinating as well as equally intriguing. Quite often, I have come across pieces of art and artists who want to convey a message through their paintings, sculptures, music, films, graffiti, installations, etc. Sometimes the message is clear to an ignorant like me, sometimes it is hard to understand. However, it does get clearer once I talk to its creator and when they explain their perception of it. This always leaves me with one question – “Ok, I understand it now but how will it change anything? People like me will come, see and soon forget about it. Can art ever have any relevant impact?”.

I have never understood how art can bring about a change. I got a convincing reasoning for it, in the following quotes from JR –

Art is not supposed to change the world, to change practical things, but to change perceptions. Art can change the way we see the world. Art can create an analogy.

He further continues, “Actually the fact that art cannot change things makes it a neutral place for exchanges and discussions, and then enables you to change the world”. I saw this very interesting TED talk of JR where he shows how he used his art to make a difference. He is a French street photographer who prints his pictures and pastes them on walls of cities across the world. Check out this talk to understand his idea for his art –

I would especially draw your attention to the part of the video from 15:47 to 16:56, where he becomes creative in pasting posters in India when he wasn’t allowed to. Also get a quick overview of his work from 17:07 to 18:35 and 20:20 onwards.

He has also started a project called “Inside Out“, where you can upload images to their website and they will send you back printed posters which you can paste in your community. Off course, the images and the idea of pasting the posters must have a social relevance. You may read more about it at this TED blog.

What inspires me about JR’s work is the new aspect of social relevance that he has brought to photography.

Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I heard this poem of William Butler Yeats in a TED talk of Sir Ken Robinson. In this talk, he expresses his concerns about the current education system. He calls it a manufacturing-based model which is not only killing the creativity of kids but also making them uninterested in education. He suggests for a more personalized form of education where kids have freedom to choose what they wish to learn. He concludes his talk by reading out the above poem and with the following lines –

And everyday, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet.
And we should tread softly.

The Earth Shall Be Left To No One

Let us be friends for once,
Let us make life easy on us,
Let us be lovers and loved ones,
The earth shall be left to no one.

These were the lines with which Elif Shafak concluded her TED talk titled ‘The Politics of Fiction’. I randomly chanced to listen to her talk after I was intrigued by it’s description which read as follows –

“Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.”

The poetry is a Sufi poetry and beautifully describes the essence of life. In our day to day living, we often forget that we have to leave behind whatever we earn and gather in our lifetime. So why not earn something as beautiful as friendship and leave behind something as pure as love.