How does art create an intervention and facilitate advocacy? Can the experience and symbolic gestures brought about by art transform the world? How might the citizen activist and citizen artist work together to develop a set of skills and opportunities that allow us to be more effective in the world? These questions inform the pedagogy and practice of the Public Engagement program at Maine College of Art and guide our partnership work in the community. This fall, students in Professor Michel Droge’s Public Engagement courses Nature Lab and Field Guide to a New World collaborated with Maine Audubon to research local conservation and environmental issues, and study the role of the artist as cultural mirror, maker, and activist. Students produced prints and books that use the tradition of combining fine art and scientific research. The artworks pay homage to the legacy of John James Audubon and others such as Henry David Thoreau and Winslow Homer in their use of illustration, field documentation and writing to capture and reflect nature.
Through the Public Engagement Program at Maine College of Art, I strive to educate
knowledgeable citizens of the world because we are always, at all times, citizens, artists, and
designers. By extending the campus into the community, I facilitate opportunities for students to co-create socially engaged art projects with communities. In this framework students begin to see how the practice of artists and designers is expansive and dynamic, and how we work and where we work is evolving. At the core of this work are community partnerships and a shared belief in the power of civic engagement. From the beginning of MECA’s partnership with Maine Audubon, it was clear that our two organizations hold shared values, including, “forging leaders, activists and messengers focused on addressing pressing local issues’. The “citizen activist” and the “citizen, artist, designer “ are critical to successful advocacy and education.
Working for social change and drawing out the creativity in our community platforms requires a long-term commitment to bridge building. How do we animate our connections to each other and sustain partnerships that enable us to build the world we want to live in? An essential place to start is seeing each other in and of the place where we stand. If we can see each other ‘in relationship’ as fellow citizens and stewards of our world, how might this guide the work we do? Can we discover common ground, even enlarge the ground we stand on and our sense of human responsibility? How might the citizen activist and citizen artist partner to renew the space of civic participation and expand it to encompass nature, the landscape, and wildlife? For artist and MECA faculty Michel Droge, “the role of the artist in this climate is many faceted. Artists are a mirror of the world around them, but the artist's job is often to say what is not usually said by others. By presenting this work to the world, we create a space for conversation or for thinking or feeling the impact of what's happening. What I do with my work is shine a light on what's happening and find new ways to talk about it. Hopefully, this leads to new ideas and a stronger community, empathy, and compassion.I think that’s at the base of where any change begins.”.
Contemporary artists are working in the studio, classroom, and community. Within these contexts, artists are building platforms for public engagement, dialog and social change. Essential to this work is building long-term relationships and connecting art practice to the larger concerns in the world. When I consider the scale of human need and uncertainty in the current global context I ask, What is the role of the artist and the value of creativity in the ever-changing global landscape marked by profound human need, environmental crisis, and rapid social-political change? I believe the answer is in the question. It is through creative action that it is possible to solve the world’s most pressing needs and to accomplish this work we need artists everywhere. For MECA student Matanah Betko, “it is important for the artist to present an idea for moving forward. It’s not hard to make people feel bad, but is very difficult to make people move.” Adding artists into this equation opens up unseen possibilities because artists bring creative processes and new models of thinking into problem-solving. These new models facilitate deep learning and shift perception
through active participation, social experience, and experimentation. By working collaboratively, student artists and community partners forge the authentic relationships that are necessary for making real, lasting social change.
Moving from an “I “to “we” paradigm prepares the ground for genuine collaboration and
co-creation. Within this framework, we can see the power of collective action and awaken our creativity to solve real-world problems. The co-creation model guides all our work in the Public Engagement Program. Co-creation amplifies the social aspect of socially engaged art, by making work with, by and for others. The process is generative and facilitates opportunities for imaginative engagement and dialog. Working collaboratively to address complex issues requires us to take our time, be deliberate and to be reflective. These conditions support the mutual goals of facilitating social action while also creating space for questioning and mystery inherent in both art making and nature. For the students in Professor Michel Droge class, this space of discovery and questioning was nurtured through active field study and research in the landscape. “Students learn to engage with the land to understand things on a visceral level. They experience the environment directly and feel it. It's not an abstract concept. They see how their work can aid the institutions we work with and enhance the work they do. As a result, they see the issues and the solutions and their impact. That’s an amazing form of activism. Once they feel that, they never lose it.”
In socially engaged art the outcome is both the creative process and the resulting artwork. The goal is to move from project to platform where the impact of the project outlasts the presentation and establishes sustainable avenues for creative and social action. In this model, there is an active partnership between campus and community where individuals co-labor and co-create the world we want to inhabit. These are not a one-off, short-term solutions, but require making and connecting over time. Maine College of Art and Maine Audubon have a shared view of Maine as a place of natural beauty, and site of inspiration and inquiry. Our common task of expressing the value of the local, as well as a serious commitment to repairing the world we share, brings the heart of our partnership into sharp focus: we can realize the long-term goals of conservation and stewardship of all aspects of our community through strong partnerships. If “people are the secret to successful advocacy” than we must establish a process that values genuine collaboration, joint authorship, and meaningful belonging. When we are all at the table from the beginning, we share a common language and a dynamic relationship. Strong partnerships are similar to a thriving ecology. They require attention and care of the interrelationships within an environment and ability to see the totality of relations, guided by reciprocity and inclusivity. As caretakers of our environment and community, we must bring this way of seeing and being into all aspects of our lives.
In the current climate, we will continue to grapple with problems that are increasingly complex and hard to define. Using the immersive experiences of art making and encountering nature we focus our attention and lessen the distance between each other and our world. For MECA student Renee Michaud, “in these moments I can step back and see the whole picture and recognize that I play a part. This feeling is similar to when I am making a painting and all the little pieces of paint combine to evoke a form. We are all contributing to the palette, and together we create a better composition.” Collective action with our networks and communities is necessary to undertake complex issues and develop strategies for purposeful innovation and social change. There is a great need for artists and citizens who are willing to create spaces of risk where we can reach across boundaries and build bridges to imagine our collective future. My classroom is where I begin.