What it’s all about?

This blog is devoted to Social Justice Art…. Is it Justice? Or Just Us?

“Because…. art is a place for idealism, one of the very last available, and is open to all makers and observers. Artists gleefully spill our knowledge of blasphemy, injustice, and question to thoughtfully confront and provoke the world to its bigotry and blindness. We attack oppressive and dilapidated power structures. It is a healthy war of therapeutic fulfillments. We bring thought and question to cultivate an educational environment of free thinking minds towards our ever changing diverse society through non-objective visual documentation and psychological challenging interpretations.”

Some main topics open for examination:

Activist Art: represents and includes aesthetic, sociopolitical, and technological developments that have attempted to challenge and complicate the traditional boundaries and hierarchies of culture as represented by those in power. Like protest art, activist art practice emerged partly out of a call for art to be connected to a wider audience, and to open up spaces where the marginalized and disenfranchised can be seen and heard. Activist art incorporates the use of public space to address socio-political issues and to encourage community and public participation as a means of bringing about social change. It aims to effect social change by engaging in active processes of representation that work to foster participation in dialogue, raise consciousness, and empower individuals and communities.

Conceptual Art: sought to expand aesthetic boundaries in its critique of notions of the art object and the commodity system within which it is circulated as currency. Conceptual artists experimented with unconventional materials and processes of art production. Grounded by strategies rooted in the real world, projects in conceptual art demanded viewer participation and were exhibited outside of the traditional and exclusive space of the art gallery, thus making the work accessible to the public. Similarly, collaborative methods of execution and expertise drawn from outside the art world are often employed in activist art so as to attain its goals for community and public participation. Parallel to the emphasis on ideas that conceptual art endorsed, activist art is process-oriented, seeking to expose embedded power relationships through its process of creation. In the political sphere, the militancy and identity politics of the period fostered the conditions out of which activist art arose.

Guerilla Art: An anonymous work (including but not limited to graffiti, signage, performance, additions and decoration installed, performed, or attached in public spaces, with a distinct purpose of affecting the world in a creative or thought-provoking way. Guerilla art reawakens the sense of connection to the environment.

Protest Art: refers to the signs, banners, and any other form of creative expression used by activists to convey a particular cause or message. It is a visual action taken by social activists to make a point clear. Protest art is also used to with the intention to promote counter-thinking about the fabric of society itself. Often such art is used as part of demonstrations or acts of civil disobedience. Some key icons in protest art have been the dove, the peace symbol, and taunting messages.

Resistance Art: has long been a term used to describe those that use art as a way of showing their opposition to social power structures. The term has been used to define art that opposed such powers as the German Nazi party, the Bolshevik Revolution and apartheid in South Africa.

Social Realism: A very broad term applied to various aspects of late 19th. and 20th. Century art, which implies some degree of, protest prevailing social conditions, usually from a left wing point of view, and utilizing several medium techniques.

Be a part of. Come and engage. Please post comments, artwork, poetry, discussion, exchange of ideas and interpretation.