Skip to main content

Art and Social Change: The Role of Creativity and Wonder

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Street Art of Resistance

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture ((PASCC))

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between creativity and social change with a particular focus on public, participatory, and interactive forms of art. I argue that creativity and the experience of wonder hold the key to unpacking this complex relationship. Following the perspectival model of this phenomenon, I start from the premise that creative action essentially involves generating new perspectives on a given reality. By placing these perspectives in dialogue, a space of reflexivity emerges whereby reality appears as essentially multiple and open to change. The awareness of the possible and engagement with it defines the experience of wonder. And it is collective wondering that makes social change thinkable and, thus, ultimately achievable.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations a state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Management, 40(5), 1297–1333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Awad, S. H. (2017). Documenting a forbidden memory: Symbols in the changing city space of Cairo. Culture & Psychology, 23(2), 234–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • Awad, S. H., Wagoner, B., & Glăveanu, V. P. (2017). The street art of resistance. In N. Chaudhary, P. Hviid, P. Marsico, & J. Villadsen (Eds.), Resistance in everyday life: Constructing cultural experiences (161-180). New Delhi: Spinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boros, D. (2012). Creative rebellion for the twenty-first century: The importance of public and interactive art to political life in America. New York: Palgrave.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Campana, A. (2011). Agents of possibility. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research, 52(4), 278–291.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • David, E. A., & McCaughan, E. J. (2006). Editors’ introduction: Art, power, and social change. Social Justice, 33(2), 1–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edelman, M. (1995). From art to politics: How artistic creations shape political conceptions. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaertner, S. L., Mann, J., Murrell, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (1989). Reducing intergroup bias: The benefits of recategorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 239–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2010). Paradigms in the study of creativity: Introducing the perspective of cultural psychology. New Ideas in Psychology, 28(1), 79–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2014). Distributed creativity: Thinking outside the box of the creative individual. Cham: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2015a). Developing society: Reflections on the notion of societal creativity. In A.-G. Tan & C. Perleth (Eds.), Creativity, culture, and development (pp. 183–200). Singapore: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2015b). Creativity as a sociocultural act. Journal of Creative Behavior, 49(3), 165–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2016). Perspective. In V. P. Glăveanu, L. Tanggaard, & C. Wegener (Eds.), Creativity: A new vocabulary (pp. 104–110). London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P., & de Saint-Laurent, C. (2015). Political imagination, otherness and the European crisis. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 11(4), 557–564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gruber, C. W., Clark, M. G., Klempe, S. H., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2015). Constraints of agency: Explorations of theory in everyday life. London: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrebye, S. F. (2016). Social change and creative activism in the 21st century: The mirror effect. Houndmills: Palgrave.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Helmy, M. M., & Frerichs, S. (this volume). Defying Shahryar’s spirit: Egyptians cartoonists’ relentless quest for legitimacy. In S. H. Awad & B. Wagoner (Eds.), The street art of resistance. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jarbou, A. (this volume). Graffiti of resistance in the Arab world, before and after the Arab Spring. In S. H. Awad & B. Wagoner (Eds.), The street art of resistance. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lattore, G. (this volume). Indigenous images of democracy on city streets: Native representations in contemporary Chilean graffiti and Muralism. In S. H. Awad & B. Wagoner (Eds.), The street art of resistance. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesch, C. (2013). Art and politics: A small history of art for social change since 1945. London: I. B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2013). Towards a ‘science of movement’: Identity, authority and influence in the production of social stability and social change. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 1(1), 112–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, C. (2015). Art as a diagnostic: Assessing social and political transformation through public art in Cairo, Egypt. Social & Cultural Geography, 16(1), 22–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. R. (this volume). Indigenous graffiti and street art as political resistance. In S. H. Awad & B. Wagoner (Eds.), The street art of resistance. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Subašić, E., Reynolds, K. J., Reicher, S. D., & Klandermans, B. (2012). Where to from here for the psychology of social change? Future directions for theory and practice. Political Psychology, 33(1), 61–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yalcintas, A. (2015). Intellectual disobedience in Turkey. In A. Yalcintas (Ed.), Creativity and humour in occupy movements (pp. 6–29). London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zanella, A. V. (this volume). Inventive ReXistence: Notes about the graffiti in Brazil and any tension produced in the cities. In S. H. Awad & B. Wagoner (Eds.), The street art of resistance. London: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Glăveanu, V.P. (2017). Art and Social Change: The Role of Creativity and Wonder. In: Awad, S., Wagoner, B. (eds) Street Art of Resistance. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63330-5_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics