#crisisart

Sarah provided a confident and heart-warming in-depth look at what it takes to turn language into action. She helped explain how we can begin with an idea or philosophical goal and turn it into realizable change.

Restore Humanity's ability to effect change starts from their beautifully crafted mission statement, which is to restore humanity:

"...by taking the opportunity to help whenever, wherever, and however we can – not dictating the terms of our assistance, but responding to the needs of the individuals and communities we are serving."

  From this mission, Restore Humanity developed a list of core values that helped create small, concrete, realizable accomplishments.

CORE VALUES 

1. Golden Rule

2. All About People

3. Intensive Cross-Cultural Collaboration

4. Prudent Use of Funds & Resources

5. Total Transparency

6. Strategic Fluidity & Patience

7. Drop the Cape

Sarah's talk challenged artists to think like activists and develop both a clear vision and a mission in order to promote positive change in the world.  

She also challenged us by asking that we give back humanity to those who are on the receiving end of an activist's work. She challenged us to "drop the cape" along with our savior mentality.

This is where poverty porn comes into play. 

You see, the first core value Sarah discussed with us was The Golden Rule: 

Golden Rule:  We treat others the way we want to be treated.  This means avoiding sensationalizing and perpetuating misconceptions and negative or clichéd stereotypes.  The best way to restore and preserve humanity is to treat the people we serve with the dignity and respect we would want shown to us if we were similarly situated.  Being compassionate requires empathy and kindness—not pity. 

The practical application of this value is Restore Humanity's commitment to not falling into the trap of poverty porn. 

What is poverty porn? Poverty porn includes any media which exploits the condition of the poor or the suffering in order to generate a sense of pity. This is usually done for the purpose of either selling news media, increasing charitable donations, or to generate public support for the activist's cause. 

Debates and examples of the issue of poverty porn can be found at:

One.org: Five Reasons Poverty Porn Empowers the Wrong Person

Aidthoughts.org: What is 'poverty porn' and why does it matter for development?

Doc Soup: "Poverty Porn" and a Proposal That Could End it Once and For All

Clearly, poverty porn is a hotly debated topic in the field of activism, but it's a phrase that is not commonly tossed around outside that community. We as artist were immediately interested in hearing more about the topic. 

So, Sarah showed us how instead she attempts to use media to highlight the humanity of the communities and people she works with. As you can see in the many picture above from Restore Humanity's website, she does not try to illicit pity for the children who stay at the James Christopher Opot Children's Center, a Kenyan Children's Home that is Restore Humanity's foundation project. Instead, she shows them simply as people: funny, silly, playful, loving, young, vibrant people. 

So, what does Poverty Porn have to do with Comedy?

In comedy, we do not necessarily look to portray people as much as stereotypes. We're interested in portraying qualities of humanity as opposed to humans.

Above, you will see one of our performers, Aly, preparing to portray Kim Kardashian. We clearly are not interested in portraying her honestly as a human. We are interested in taking the image of Kim Kardashian and pushing it to its most absurd extremes in order to make a point about our culture and to illicit a response from our audience. 

In order to produce poignant satire, we attempt to use exaggeration. We attempt to take the everyday challenges that we face in the political, social, and economic worlds and turn up the volume all the way to from 1 to 10.

This is why we at Off-Color chose to put up a live-action cartoon: a cartoon's very essence is about taking a caricature of humanity and blowing it humorously out of proportion.   

While cartoon is by no means poverty porn, it did bring up a question of the ethics of exaggeration. 

In the discussion following Sarah's talk, we artists had to ask ourselves a question. 

Where is the line between exaggeration for artistic purposes and the exaggeration used in 'poverty porn'? What is the difference?

Many people argued that the difference was intent. If one was exaggerating and hyperbolizing a child's suffering for money than it was ethically questionable, but if I simply was exaggerating because I wanted to evoke laughter, then it was okay. 

But then what about artist-activists who use exaggeration in order to help them get a political point across, as we do in satire? Is that not also the intention of some charities who simply want to spread word about the crisis of poverty in the world? 

Somebody mentioned the idea that those charities were in the wrong because they were turning the children's suffering into a product. 

But is art not about taking the abstract and turning it into a concrete product so that it can be spread or even 'sold' to a wider audience? 

Are the abused puppies that Sarah McLachlan sings about exaggerations with a positive artistic intent attached or are they to being manipulated into products in an offensive way? 

Is it simply the unfortunate who does not deserve to be exaggerated or is exaggerated fortune dehumanizing as well?

Where is the line?

Was it our portrayal of Kim Kardashian as a booby sex doll? 

(Photo Credit: Jon Kellam)

We could not come to a clear answer.

The festival had just begun and already we had stumbled upon a massive gray area that cut through artists and activists a like and quickly the room exploded in debate.

Soon enough, we were talking about the idea that one cannot retain private control over an image--it's meaning is up for public manipulation. We began to argue about whether social media has allowed for greater human connectivity or has alienated an entire generation from the world in front of them. Does Instagram help ideas spread or does it over simplify the crises we face today? 

I still don't know where the line is regarding exaggeration. I don't know what determines whether an piece of art is a product or whether a product is a piece of art. 

But I do know that these are conversations that our worth having and that these fierce and explosive dialogues are proof that more activists should attend festivals for the arts. 

Activists can provide the fuel to spur the artist forward. They provide the very demanding questions that are the fodder of every great work. 

Sarah and Boo were amazing participants to have at the CrisisArt Festival. They were funny, loving, and open to all of our artistic pursuits. They brought an eye to the performances that was incredibly unique and in touch with the realities of the crises that we as artists wanted to portray. 

It was also an honor to be able to make them laugh with our comedic antics. That slight reprise was the least we could provide for people who undertake such ambitious projects day after day after day. 

As far as poverty porn goes, let's keep the discussion going. Comment here or on our Facebook page--send us a message even! Maybe you'll see your response posted here on our Tumblr! 

If you want to learn more about Restore Humanity go to: www.restorehumanity.org

What is the CrisisArt Festival?

The CrisisArt Festival is a week-long event where artists and activists from around the globe come together in Arezzo, Italy to both share their work and discuss the worldwide distress that's been growing ever since the 2008 financial crisis.

What is unique about this crisis is that it is the first man-made global crisis that we have ever faced. Never before has the world been united in its distress. There is no nation that is secure in its financial future. There is no family that does not worry about the world their children will inherit.

Everywhere instability can be found. Everywhere people feel at risk. It's manifesting in many different forms, but it's everywhere you look.

And it's hard when you're at risk to even attempt to change. However, we must change.

But I will admit, it's much easier to change when you are tucked away in a gorgeous Tuscan villa.

Can you tell me more about this gorgeous Tuscan villa?  

I sure can! The CrisisArt festival takes place on the campus of Accademia dell'Arte which is housed old Tuscan villa that has been converted into classrooms, theaters, studios, and housing for students of the performing arts. During the year, Accademia dell'Arte offers study abroad programs for undergrads as well as two MFA programs in physical theater.

The villa is absolutely gorgeous as I will now demonstrate with some mind boggling pictures. 

Here's one of their rehearsal spaces: 

Here's one of their theaters: 

Here's the roof of that theater: 

And the view from within the theater:

Yeah. It's stupid. It's stupid how pretty it is.

Thanks to donors, we only had to pay a small fee for room and board in order to participate in the festival, which was amazing seeing as we were provided with three wonderful meals a day. 

It was pretty magical. 

Yeah. Wait. What? 

That's what we said, too. It's actually unbelievable.

So, a bunch of artists and activists spend a week at a beautiful villa in the heart of Tuscany eating wonderful food--how does crisis fit into all this again? 

Hold on, hold on. I was just getting to that part.  

Art, at its best, has a hint of the future in it while also giving clarity to the past. Not only does it act as a soothsayer, but it also gives us a playground for experimenting with new systems of social and political order. 

The CrisisArt website says it best:

There is a new and manifest spirit of resistance that is visible around the world. Everywhere people are searching for, and experimenting with, creative means to assert a new social autonomy, outside the control of financial capital. Never has there been a better time, a more important time, for creative artists to join with social activists to give shape to the emerging social struggles.

That's right. The Off-Color Theatre Company is giving shape to your emerging social struggles: 

Bam! How's that for an emerging social struggle? 

Mmm, I can feel the ripples of the future all the way over here!

Uh oh! Looks like the financial capital is wooing the strong arms of our justice system again! That little rascal! 

So, why are you guys here again?

If any genre of art has ripples of the future in it, its comedy. Comedy is all about seeing what is and then expanding upon it, showing its possibly extraordinary consequences if followed through to the nth degree. 

It's about showing the ridiculousness and absurdity within our systems once they are magnified or applied out of a traditional context. 

And also, after a week of talking about violence against children, poverty, and the moral debt were all slowly amounting, it was nice to laugh a little.

But, seriously, art and crisis... what could you possibly have done in a secluded villa in Tuscany to improve the world? 

In all honesty, yes, the views were beautiful. And the low cost we had to pay for room and board thanks to the help donors was also really wonderful. And, yeah, being in Italy was kind of cool, I guess. 

But in the end, it was the chance to experience an entirely different way of building a community that truly made the festival what it was.

We did not just talk about how to change the world, we actually experimented with how the world could be changed. 

You see, the festival is structured in a unique way. At the festival, there is no traditional vertical power structure, meaning there was no hierarchy, no leader, no assistants, no underlings, and (especially) no interns. Instead, there was a horizontal power structure where no one person overruled another. Everyone who was at the festival helped to build the festival and had an equal say in what the festival became. No one person held any more responsibility than anyone else and no participant was devalued. 

What this meant was that we not only participated in the festival as performers, speakers, and audience members, but we also served food to each other, we cleaned up after meals for each other, and we prepared the grounds for each other's performance. We had daily meetings where we delegated tasks, we discussed technical issue, and we saw that everyone and everything was taken care of and was shown respect. 

We were a collective. And by being a collective, real relationships built on respect and trust began to form between everyone no matter where they were from or what their talent happened to be. We were united by a love of art and a love a discussion and, soon enough, a genuine love of each other.

Quickly, although no jobs where required, we all started to take on as much as we could for the pure joy of building our community and helping out our friends. We became a productive society and, yet, still a free society. We were a collective, but our autonomy as individuals was respected and retained. At no point was anyone forced to act out of their own will. 

Wait a second... Are you one of those sneaky communists? I thought we got rid of you! 

Look, political and economic theory is a complicated but relevant issue and if we can't even talk about possible alternatives or even variations on our current structures than it's going to take us much longer to rebuild a sense of stability in our communities again. 

So, are you saying that the ability to talk and experiment freely both artistically and intellectually amongst amazingly beautiful and intelligent peers from around the world is really wonderful way to spend a week and is also the first step to addressing the global crisis in our midst?

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. 

We need to be free to take risks right now, socially, economically, and politically. We need to experiment and discuss new ways to find stability in our own homes. 

This festival gave artists and activists a chance to come together and, through our work, communicate fearlessly and boldly what crises we were seeing in our own lives and how we wanted to address them. 

The festival was about people of all different backgrounds coming together to work outside of the normal confines of their nations political, social, and economic structures to experiment with a different way of being, of operating. 

It was a study of how we could all be together and build something more than any one of us could do alone. 

Wow. That sounds great. 

It was. And sure, maybe this structure doesn't work on a larger scale or for a more long term scale, but for this week, the festival was able to bring us all together and form bonds that we will carry with us when we return to our separate shores. 

More than the beautiful views, the lovely food, and the wonderfully innovative and daring art, it was he connections we made to people from all over the world that really made this festival what it was.

Even now as I speak, I scroll though my Facebook newsfeed and I'm seeing posts from friends in Italy, in Ukraine, and in England about the political struggles they are seeing on the streets. Our world has been opened through them. 

We were honored to see so much work from all different perspectives and created through such stunning talents we'd like to share some of their beautiful work with you. 

So, over the next few posts on this blog, we're going to be highlighting certain performances, lectures, and films from the festival. Stay posted! 

For more information on the CrisisArt Festival and how you can apply, go to http://www.crisisart.org/