Art Creativity and Performance

The Artist as Peacebuilder

Mshai Mwangola

PERFORMANCE

“a way of making meaning – as discourse – a way of communicating”

• Process: way of making (verb)• Product: meaning – understanding (noun)• Discourse / Communication – therefore an audience and an interlocuter

(people)

PERFORMANCE

“…a means by which people reflect on their current conditions, define and / or reinvent themselves and

their social world, and either reinforce, resist, or subvert

prevailing social orders.” Margaret Drewal “The State of Research on Performance in Africa”

STORY

“(Re)presentation of real or imagined lived experience”

Mshai Mwangola “Performing Our Stories, Performing Ourselves”

• Present – for others to witness / understand / become aware of it• Real or Imagined

• Lived experience – drawing from the contexts we can relate to

performance

''not what they do and we observe;

we are both engaged in it”Johannes Fabian Performative Ethnography

ART

A creative facilitated community conversation within a particular social context

Creative Facilitated – artist(s) and others

Community – audience(s)Conversation – multiple perspectives

Social Context

CREATIVITY

“Bringing into being something which did not exist

before, either as a product, a process or

a thought which has some kind of value”

Levels of Creativity

• Introduce something which either has never existed before or to people who did not know of its existence

• Introduce a new process for doing something• Develop a new perspective to something or a

situation• Change the way others understand or engage

with something

Results of Creativity

• Introduce new things into a community

• Ameliorate products, processes or services

• Alter people’s attitude or perspective • leading to a change in people’s

circumstances

The ARTS

• Performing arts• Visual arts–Image–Inscription / Literary

• Others - culinary etc• Orature

– “Transcending Boundaries”

whatAffirm existing status quo Challenge existing status quo Start a completely new conversation Introduce a new dimension / perspectiveBring new people into the conversation Bring people into a new place of

engagement

whoFACILITATORS:

ARTISTS / INTERVENERS / support professionals• The Form• The Content• The Motivation• Lessons to learn • Relationship to this issue and • Relationship to audience / community

whom• Make-up of audience/s?• The motivation to engage issue• The motivation to engage in this forum• The stake• Special needs or context• Preparation / Background necessary • Relationship to this issue • Relationship to others in audience / artists• Desired outcome

where• Location of – the preparation / devisal – the engagement– the review

• Ownership of the space– the preparation (negotiations, research, creation)– the engagement– the review

• Conventions of the space

when• Within the Peacebuilding Process–Before violent manifestation of conflict–During violent manifestation of conflict–After violent manifestation of conflict

• The Period of engagement• The Frequency of engagement• The Context of engagement: – Other interlocutors – Other processes / events

how

• The Form(s)– The genre(s): what does this form do?– Art in the community / coming into the community– The genre(s) in the community

• The Content: – Issues

• The Context – Of the intervention– Presentation of Intervention

In summary, know why• This issue?• This outcome?• This community / audience?• This time / period?• These facilitators? • This form?• This space?

Four Aspects of Art

The Artist as Peacebuilder

Mshai Mwangola

Artivism: Paul Robeson

“The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight

for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice;

I had no alternative.”

(Photo credit: Henri Cartier-Bresson)

ASPECTS OF ART

• The Godlike aspect• The Socratic aspect

• The Andersonian aspect• The Munchian aspect

Ngugi wa Thiong’o: “Art, War with State: Writers and Guardians of a Post-Colonial State”

Michelangelo

Sistine Chapel: “Creation of Adam”

The Godlike Aspect

• A new perspective• “one brings different things together

to make a third”• The essence of creativity is motion

Socrates

‘I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing’

(Painting credit: Jacques-Louis David)

The Socratic Aspect

• The stimulation of a gadfly• Art has more questions than it has

answers• Art starts with a position of not

knowing and seeks to know

(Hans Christian Anderson)

The Andersonian Aspect

• Holding up a mirror to society• Saying what people may know but do not

dare to articulate• “carry the innocence of the child”…

“even have the awkward habit of peering under the clothes of any emperor”

Edward Munch

the silent

scream

The Munchian Aspect

• Voice– Combination of articulations, both articulated and

non-articulated, scriptable and non-scriptable– Sign: a pointer to a reality– The broadest possible human gesture expressing a

meaning, a wish, a judgement, a mood, a situation of being

• Restores voices to the land• Give voice to the silenced

Artivism: Chinua Achebe

Let me say that I do think decency and civilization would insist that the writer take sides

with the powerless. Clearly, there's no moral obligation to write in any particular way. But there

is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless. I think an artist,

in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against

his powerless subjects.

decisions

The 3 “P’s”

•Product •Process

•Participation

Product

“something to give”• The emphasis is on the finished product that

contains the lesson or the main message• Devised / created by facilitators for the

audience / community• The finished piece on display / performed to

audiences

Process

“something to experience”• The emphasis is on the process of creation

that delivers (a) particular lesson(s) or message(s)

• Devised / created by facilitators with community

• Entire journey from inspiration to review critical to engagement

Participation

“something to share”• The emphasis is on the dynamics of

participation that engages the participants in being in community

• Devised / created by a community of different interests led by the facilitators

• Facilitation of exchange with participants coming to consensus on process and product

Product and Process

The Artist as Peacebuilder

Mshai Mwangola

CHANGE

•Redemptive•Reformative•Transformative

what change do you seek?

Fredrick Douglass

Power concedes nothing without a demand.

It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of

injustice and wrong that will be imposed on them, and these will continue until they are resisted with either words, or blows or both.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the limits of endurance of those whom they oppress.

HUMAN CONFLICT

• INNER

•OUTER

right - PERSPECTIVE - wrong

•Side A

•Side B

theory

1 2

3

1. The beginning 2. The inciting point 3. The development4. The crisis / climax

5. The resolution

4

35

The dramatic arc

RISING ACTIONFALLING ACTION

3

3

PROTAGONIST

ANTAGONIST

helpers neutral

negative

CHARACTERS

positive

neutral

motivation / stake

1

2

2/3

23CONFLICT

post-conflictresolution

consolidation

pre-conflicttension

incitementdevelopment

climax

CHANGE

STATUS QUO

ARTIVIST neutral

negative

PARTIES

positive

neutral

motivation / stake

praxis

What artistic intervention best

delivers the desired outcome here?

What partners are needed?

Where are you in your activism?

What needs to be done here?

OUTCOME

•PRODUCT•PROCESS

•PARTICIPATIONCHOICES

PEACEBUILDING

"We need to understand reconciliation… as the transformation of

destructive conflict, not unanimity.It doesn't mean we all agree,

it is that we find ways of disagreeing, perhaps very passionately but loving each other deeply at the same time,

gracefully and deeply committed to each other.”

Justin Welby