Applying an ethological perspective of art to the community arts and socially engaged arts

ABSTRACT

This article argues and demonstrates that a distinction between artistic and non-artistic methods in community/socially engaged arts can open new discussions that advance and challenge the practice. While the boundary between art and non-art is far from clear, several widely read publications on community/socially engaged arts have categorized such works as the same class of engagement, investigating primarily their political and cultural impact, leaving the experiential dimension of the engagement overlooked. The ethological perspective of art presented by anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake is drawn upon for a definition of art that connects the experiential and social experience of art with the survival and thriving of individuals and their communities. Through an interdisciplinary approach, this definition of art is integrated with theories of psychology and social psychology for a multifaceted explanation of the phenomenon of collaborative art making. This discussion reconsiders the simplistic understanding of the oft-quoted phrase ‘everyone is an artist’, the ‘lowest-common denominator’ critique of collaborative art making, and the instrumentalization of art.

KEYWORDS:

• Community art
• socially engaged art
• psychology and art
• ethology and art
• participatory art
• social practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Samson Kei Shun Wong (PhD, Lingnan) takes a theoretical and practical interest in the collaborations among multiple art forms in participatory community practices. His community arts practice is an integration of his musicianship, experience in theatre and the visual arts, enabling him to bring together artists of different media in collaborative projects in Hong Kong, Canada, China and India. Samson is a member of the Hong Kong organization Art for All, where he has worked with people of different backgrounds and advantages since 2001. He studied Arts Management and Music History & Culture at the University of Toronto, and worldview studies at ICS. He currently teaches aesthetics and theory of community and socially engaged arts at the Hong Kong Design Institute.

ORCID

Samson Kei Shun Wong http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6804-5147

Notes

1 For clarification purposes, ‘artist engagement’ includes in general all engagements with communities by artists regardless of methods or forms. ‘Artistic engagements’ are those that utilize forms popularly understood as art, such as painting, music, dance, theatre and filmmaking, in contrast to ‘non-artistic engagement’ such as soup-kitchen or political mobilization.

2 A community music project inspired by the Morecambe Bay tragedy in 2004, when 21 Chinese illegal migrants were drowned while cockling. It developed into a multi-city project that explored the roots of the victims.

3 A performance and television work over a week where asylum seekers lived in containers set up in the square outside the Vienna Opera House, broadcast as a reality show. Asylum seekers were voted out daily by the public until the last one, who will be rewarded with the chance of Austrian citizenship. The show sparked discussions for its critique of television shows and controversial treatment of asylum seekers.

4 The application of Dissanayake’s ethological perspective to the community arts and socially-engaged arts is indebted to the work of Dr Sophia Law. See for example Law (2014) on artworks created by Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.

5 Finklepearl (2013) provides an in-depth discussion of participatory art using Dewey’s ideas, describing Dewey’s work as ‘pointing to the politics of the distribution of the aesthetic experience’ (346). In contrast, this author’s emphasis on Dewey is on the nature of experience. A full discussion of Dewey would be beyond the space of this article. See also Jacob (2012) for a discussion of Dewey and the impact of art on society.

6 Dissanayake (2000, 1995) cites Csikszentmihalyi’s work to explain the mental state of people undergoing play and rituals.

7 A youth art project that began in 2009 under the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs Association of Hong Kong to address gender issues faced by youths.

8 See Ryan and Deci (2000) for a concise discussion of the psychology research on intrinsic and extrinsic human motivations.

9 See also Hamilton et al. (2018) and Lynch and Wilson (2017) for recent research on social flow.

10 Circle Painting’s method originated from Vietnamese American artist Hiep Nguyen and the method has spread in the US and overseas to places including Vietnam and Hong Kong. See official website for details: https://www.circlepainting.org/about.html. See below for further explanation.

11 Instead of doing injustice to the format, readers are encouraged to visit Circle Painting’s website or Facebook page to view a video of their activities.

12 The Circle Art Festival was an expansion of the Circle Painting method to incorporate participatory dance movement and music creation.

13 Also see the range of projects featured in the forums on community organized by the MA and BA in Cultural Management, Chinese University HK between 2013 and 2018.