Arterritory holiday wishes
Can art help us survive?
Like life, art exists on many levels. And it does something very profound to us, penetrating the layers of consciousness as well as affecting our physiology. Art gives emotional substantiality to things that might otherwise go unnoticed or that appear to be mundane.
The experience of art is also an experience of openness – openness to diversity, to curiosity, and to constantly being on the move. It changes one’s sense of time, and reminds us that time can also take many different shapes and forms. Even when seemingly annoying, art leaves a positive imprint because it leads us to think and to analyse, awakening inner realms that in any other case would be left slumbering. It makes you go deeper, ask questions and seek answers. And these need not always be pleasant and flattering – sometimes they shed light on ignorance and the repercussions of living strictly within one’s own orbit. Liking or hating are not decisive values in the territory of art.
Can art help us survive? Can it serve as an agent of change as we attempt to transform into better and more empathetic human beings? Does art have healing potential? Can exposure to art positively impact on our health? If it does, shouldn't the status we accord to art, both privately and through the state, be elevated to the same degree as the basic human needs of water, food, shelter and clothing?
What role will art institutions play in the near future, and how will they be changed by the pandemic? What will the museum of the future look like, and what functions will we expect of it? Will it be able to climb down from its ivory tower and become a centre of public life without losing its intellectual capacity?
In 2021, our second year spent under the smothering veil of a global pandemic, these are the questions that we have been particularly preoccupied with and which we have also posed to our conversational partners. In this way we hope to continue breaking down the boundaries between art and life, trying to make art more open and accessible – it alone has the ability to cross bridges in situations where verbal forms of communication have proved to be limited.
It is art that allows us to arrive at different – sometimes completely new – points of view as we revise and evaluate our accrued experience. Art is an instrument of survival, capable of existing outside of us and after us while also belonging to us right here and right now.
Art is both our inner child and our driving force. Art means encountering one’s own shadow as we go down the path of improving ourselves and making the world a better place. And the time for that is now, in 2022!
