Abstract
This chapter is focused on the notion of social art introduced as a theoretical model and further developed on the basis of a qualitative research conveyed in Poland between 2010 and 2012 (with the main focus on in-depth interviews with animators, participants, and observers of socioartistic practices). Social art—previously explored both by artists, like Joseph Beuys, and by sociologists, like Pierre Bourdieu—here is defined as a combination of five interrelated elements: the public aim or result of an activity; the broad addressees of the activity; the inclusive way the addressees are engaged in the activity—as creators or recipients of art; the social location of the activity—outside both the art world and public cultural institutions; and the civic qualities of the activity.
The theoretical framework and the research findings that I present in this chapter have been developed as a part of my doctoral thesis and the research project “Social Art in Poland.” The research was financially supported by the National Science Centre of Poland.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The research was based on interpretative methodology and theoretical sampling. The cases that fell into the research sample were presumed instances of social art , as it was theoretically modeled beforehand, approached from the perspective of their different partakers. The research sample comprised 115 interviews, which were carried out both in big and mid-sized cities, including Białystok, Bielsko-Biała, Gdańsk, Lublin, Suwałki, and Warsaw, as well as in small towns and villages, such as Brok, Hieronimowo, Ładne, Krasnopol, Mieleszki, Mursk, Sejny, Szamocin, Teremiski, and Wigry. However, it is important to note that the research sample was framed neither on a given geographical pattern, nor on the socioeconomic characteristics of the interviewees. Instead, I resorted to the techniques of snowball and triangulation. The only frame for building the sample was the division into three contexts of social art: the public space, local communities, and minority groups, which I also refer to in the subsequent parts of this chapter. Finally, because the practices of social art tend to be largely diversified, I decided to use as a research tool the unstructured interview, facilitated through a list of research questions and instructions for the field researchers. Apart from myself, the interviews were carried out by my students: Izabela Adamska, Paulina Sadowska, Jolanta Antosiak, Katarzyna Klimaszewska, Magdalena Rynda, Anna Sierocka, Urszula Walukiewicz, Dorota Dmochowska, Kacper Kirej, and Jan Wyspiański.
- 3.
For analysis of the distinction between social art and public art, community art and activist art, see Niziołek (2009).
- 4.
Practices that combine artistic expression with social or civil intention have frequently been dismissed by the art world as nonart, even if they were adopted by professional artists (see, for example, Lacy 1995).
- 5.
See Offe (1985).
- 6.
The term “new communities” has been introduced by Peter Drucker (2011).
- 7.
Especially, if the group or organization represents a minority or supports creative individuals.
- 8.
Note that attitudes are complex phenomena in their own right and can be analyzed in terms of their cognitive, emotional, or behavioral aspects.
- 9.
The research was focused on the practice of community art.
- 10.
As I have already mentioned, within the research framework, information was collected using in-depth interviews, to enable the researcher—in accordance with a Weberian interpretative paradigm—to better understand, and not simply measure, the phenomena under scrutiny.
- 11.
Using Alberto Melucci’s (1985) term, the critical function of social art is connected to the creation of a symbolic challenge.
- 12.
The codes in square brackets are used to preserve the anonymity of the interviewees. The citations from the interviews have been translated from Polish by the author.
- 13.
This popular term refers to the shortage of state-sponsored cultural institutions in the Polish province, as well as their anachronistic modes of operation, which make them insufficient in supplying for communities’ cultural needs.
- 14.
We speak of “phantom activity” when the potential of an organization cannot be fully exploited.
- 15.
In a broad, anthropological sense, participation in culture refers to the entirety of human social experience, while culture is treated as a general pattern of this experience that is characteristic of a given society or some part of it (e.g., ethnic group or social stratum). In this sense, one cannot be excluded from culture; each human being participates in some culture and adheres, not necessarily in a conscious manner, to some cultural patterns. In a narrow sense, participation in culture is linked to such categories as cultural consumption, cultural activity, and lifestyle. Hence, it refers only to selected aspects of participation in culture in the broad sense, in particular: creation and reception of art, contact with cultural institutions and choice among their offers, consumption of products of cultural industry , as well as cultivation of cultural traditions and preservation of cultural heritage.
- 16.
By “cultural deprivation” I mean here an incapability to fulfill cultural needs that are connected to access to culture, participation in creation of culture, and cultivation of cultural differences, which is determined by the social position and social capital of an individual.
- 17.
“Art for multiculturalism,” as contrasted with “multiculturalism in art” (seen merely as a topic of art), is art that refers to diversity as the primary and indispensable human condition, and feeds on the experience of cross-cultural contact and communication (see Niziołek 2011).
References
Interviews Cited in the Chapter
IA11: Male, 31 years old, higher education, street artist, active also as a cultural animator, curator, and editor, conveys street art workshops, cofounder of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that operates in this field (interviewed in 2011).
IA17: Male, 35 years old, secondary education, graphic designer, cofounder of an NGO that operates in the field of street art, initiator of community actions, urban activist (interviewed in 2011).
IA18: Male, 33 years old, higher education (sociologist), freelancer, author of collaborative murals, stencils, and billboards, as well as net-art and film projects, occasionally engaged in community and participatory actions (interviewed in 2011).
IA33: Female, 40 years old, higher education in arts, painter, initiator of socioartistic activities in the fields of street art and community art, educator, founder, and leader of an artists’ collective (interviewed in 2011).
KK1: Male, 30 years old, higher education, dancer, choreographer, cofounder of a dance school and of an NGO that promotes street culture (interviewed in 2010).
KKl3: Male, 44 years old, secondary education, cultural organizer, documents and promotes art in the public space, leader of an NGO that operates in this field (interviewed in 2010).
KN10: Male, 32 years old, higher education (philosophy), street worker, works in a poor neighborhood of a big city (interviewed in 2010).
KN13: Male, 43 years old, higher education in arts, sculptor, initiator of community projects in a big city, instructor of an art therapy group (interviewed in 2010).
KN5: Male, 26 years old, higher education (sociologist), cultural organizer, independent musician (interviewed in 2011).
KN8: Male, 28 years old, higher education in arts, photographer, implements photographic projects in various minority contexts (interviewed in 2011).
PS2: Female, 32 years old, higher education in arts, visual artist, also creates performative actions in the public space and participatory Internet projects (interviewed in 2011).
PS20: Female, 15 years old, pupil, lives in the countryside, participator in a community photographic project (interviewed in 2011).
PS21: Female, 34 years old, higher education in arts, cultural animator, leader of a cultural NGO in a big city, implements projects oriented toward the aesthetics of public spaces in the countryside (interviewed in 2012).
PS22: Male, 40 years old, technical secondary education, graffiti writer, ecologist, social activist (interviewed in 2011).
PS27: Twin sisters, 16 years old, pupils, live in the countryside, participants in creativity workshops and aesthetic interventions in a village space (interviewed in 2012).
PS39: Married couple, sołtys (43 years old, vocational education) and his wife (36 years old, secondary education), observers of a socioartistic project implemented in their village (interviewed in 2012).
PS7: Male, 33 years old, higher education in arts, artist, curator, lecturer in an arts school, creator of net-art projects and interventions in the public space (interviewed in 2011).
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Niziołek, K. (2018). Art as a Means to Produce Social Benefits and Social Innovations. In: Alexander, V., Hägg, S., Häyrynen, S., Sevänen, E. (eds) Art and the Challenge of Markets Volume 2. Sociology of the Arts . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64644-2_5
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