From cave drawings to urban graffiti, images and words shape the way we perceive the world. Visual art literally changes our consciousness when we look at it. Our environment affects us in fundamental ways, shaping our culture and the way we think. If you wander through any city street or drive on the highway you will see advertising everywhere. Billboards and posters cluttering our visual landscape with messages to buy this or that. What if public space was filled with art from the community instead of corporate brands that are privately owned?
Using Art to Shift the Narrative
The current narrative is one steeped in the wounds and trauma of history. Many people see themselves in an endless struggle to pay bills. Feeling pitted against each other in a competition for scarce resources. The resources, are extracted without reverence or respect for the natural systems of life. This is rooted in an outdated belief system that has us at war with our environment instead of collaborating with it harmoniously. A powerful way to shift these beliefs is through images that model a different story.
What if advertising was used to inspire thought and connection instead of encourage mindless consumption and competition?
Creatively Breaking the Rules
People are envisioning a new paradigm. We see it online, with individuals creating their own memes and sharing them through social networks. This ground-swell of creativity has now started to spill onto the streets of everyday life. It is taking many forms. Public murals, mosaics, and sculptures are socially accepted. Meanwhile graffiti, wheat-pasting and other acts of creative defiance are more activism-oriented through making a statement by breaking rules.
Creative Activism on the Streets of Paris
During the Paris Climate Talks activists replaced over 600 banner advertisements around the city. In the place of corporate advertisements the placed messages about our shared responsibility to take care of the environment. This included over 80 artists from 19 different countries who made artworks to challenge the corporate takeover of climate talks. Many of the biggest sponsors are oil companies and other major polluters. This stunt helped to reveal the connections between advertising, the promotion of consumerism, and climate change.
This “greenwashing” PR by corporate polluters allows them to appear that they are part of the solution. While actually being part of the problem. Cultural creatives have found humorous ways to make a parody of the influence these corporations have over our public policy.
We start from the democratic conviction that the street is a site of communication, which belongs to the citizens and communities who live there. Our interventions are a rebellion against the visual assault of media giants and advertising moguls who have a stranglehold over messages and meaning in our public spaces, through which they force-feed us with images and messages to keep us insecure, unhappy, and shopping. – Brandalism Website
Many of the artists who participated in Paris are inspired by the famed street-art outlaw, Banksy. “Exit Through The Gift Shop“, is a film that chronicles the lifestyle and attitudes of street artists. Street Art News is a great place to learn about this growing movement. Yet you don’t always have to break the rules to make a statement.
Street Art that Inspires a Community of Kindness
Jeff Daverman, of Root Concepts has found a way to influence peoples ideas spiritually and politically through sticker lines. His popular, Non-Violent Revolutionaries depicts heroes of peace. Muralists like the Mural Mice, gather input from the local community to inform their giant public installments. Then they invite everyone to help them paint it on a wall.
Individual artists like Xavi and Chris Dyer have placed their visionary art in prominent public places across continents. These artists give an expression of transcendence to an otherwise mundane locale. Visionary Art in public spaces is truly revolutionary. Many of these pieces would be right at home in a fine art gallery. Essencia Art Collective works with youth using powerful themes like the importance of water to create urban masterpieces. The mural and street art movement is thriving which is a good indicator that consciousness is shifting.
Jeannette Maré lost her 3-year old son, Bert to the deadly virus croup. Her response was to create a public art campaign around inspiring kindness as a vehicle to heal her grief. Berts Bells in Tucson, Arizona creates colorful bells. People place these bells around the city in trees with a note, “take one and pass it along with kindness”. They also invite the community to make porcelain tiles that are used for creating mosaics on walls and park benches. All with the intention of conveying messages of kindness.
What stories do you want to see flourishing in the world around you?
Though each of us may have different talents we all have creative gifts. We can practice developing these creative gifts or let them atrophy but they are there regardless. We each also have a desire to see a better world. Not just for ourselves but for our relatives and future generations. How do we express these dreams in public spaces?
It is not enough anymore to hope and expect that anyone else will create this for us. We must step up and add our piece to the puzzle. You can always collaborate with friends who have talents that you don’t possess. Collectively we have the capacity for great change. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Free Yourself and Inspire the World Around You
Imagination is the key. We can transmute “stuck” energies through creativity and action in the world. In the process of freeing ourselves, we will inspire others. Reclaiming public space can be as simple as bringing a box of colored chalk downtown and inviting your friends.
The process of creating and observing art is therapeutic. Empower yourself to participate in enhancing the visual landscape that surrounds you. We can transform the world for the better one colorful brush stroke at a time. The possibilities are endless.
