Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines

by William Cleveland, Clarissa Estés (Foreword by)

Overview

Citizen artists successfully rebuild the social infrastructure in six communities devastated by war, repression and dislocation.

Author William Cleveland tells remarkable stories from Northern Ireland, Cambodia, South Africa, United States (Watts, Los Angeles), aboriginal Australia, and Serbia, about artists who resolve conflict, heal unspeakable trauma, give voice to the forgotten and disappeared, and restitch the cultural fabric of their communities.

Art can be a powerful agent of personal, institutional and community change. The stories in this book have valuable implications for artists, academics, educators, human service providers, philanthropists, and community leaders throughout the world. The artists documented in the book have generated new technologies for advocacy, organizing, peacemaking, healing trauma and the rebuilding of community. Creativity is our most powerful capacity, and it can mitigate and heal our most destructive tendencies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780976605461
Publisher:	New Village Press
Publication date:	08/01/2008
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

William Cleveland is the founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is an American poet, cantadora, psychoanalyst, and post-trauma specialist.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD
Introduction: "The frontlines are everywhere"

PART 1: The Community Wedding: Northern Ireland
Chapter 1: Early Days
Chapter 2: Devising
Chapter 3: A Community Wedding

PART 2: Resurrection Dance: Cambodia
Chapter 4: Killing Culture
Chapter 5: Reclaiming History
Chapter 6: Tilling the Fields

PART 3: The Art of Human Rights: South Africa
Chapter 7: Walter Kefue Chakela
Chapter 8: Artist for Human Rights
Chapter 9: Prayers, Paper, Fire
Chapter 10: Art for Humanity

PART 4: The Watts Prophets: USA
Chapter 11: Poets
Chapter 12: Prophets
Chapter 13: Griots

PART 5: Tests of Will and War: Australia
Chapter 14: X-Ray Blindness
Chapter 15: Half-a-Life
Chapter 16: Maralinga
Chapter 17: Ngapartji Ngapartji

PART 6: Dancing in the Dark: Serbia
Chapter 18: Angels in the Square
Chapter 19: Darker Still
Chapter 20: Bombs and Salt

Notes
Index
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"For some readers, this book could be used as a how-to manual for organizing a variety of arts projects responding to crisis, but for a much broader audience, Art and Upheaval will serve to validate the importance of artists working outside artistic institutions. In Cleveland's words, these artists "… are doing this to rally or to bring order, to educate and inspire, to entertain, to heal, but most of all, to tell the story―the hidden story, the story denied."

John Kreidler

"Another insightful set of observations from a master storyteller. In his new book Cleveland deepens our sense of how human imagination and creativity sit next to upheaval in the ecology of meaning."

Jennifer Williams

Expert praise for Art and Upheaval

"For some readers, this book could be used as a how-to manual for organizing a variety of arts projects responding to crisis, but for a much broader audience, Art and Upheaval will serve to validate the importance of artists working outside artistic institutions. In Cleveland's words, these artists "… are doing this to rally or to bring order, to educate and inspire, to entertain, to heal, but most of all, to tell the story—the hidden story, the story denied."
—John Kreidler, Grantmakers in the Arts Reader: Volume 20, No. 1, Spring 2009

"Each of the groups Cleveland profiles started small, but grew to provide essential safe space where communities could come together and heal. Community art offered a way forward: a chance to acknowledge and confront painful histories, to begin to resolve current conflicts, and to imagine a different kind of future."
—Brooke Jarvis, Yes! Magazine

"Cleveland gets down to gritty detail by documenting the censorship, government-sponsored arson, and institutional apathy that have threatened these outposts, as well as the specific historic moments that sparked them. All told, these are success stories against the odds. Art and Upheaval makes clear that where "monetary compensations, legal wrangling, formal apologies, condolences, and all other cultural frameworks often surrounding disasters and tragedies" stand little chance of repairing the spirit in the wake of killing unrest, public art just might."
—Josie Rawson, Public Art Review

"Cleveland’s writing about artists in far corners pulling together and creating moral centres for healing and political reconciliation is sometimes ponderous but couldn’t be more relevant now that we have a global leader in Barack Obama who has made community-organising the centrepiece of his presidency. It may be that we have outlived the long period of ethical (and aesthetic) neutrality in our culture, now that politics is finally catching up with art."
—Suzi Gablik, Resurgence Magazine

"The book is superbly written. After a brief introduction explaining his journey, Cleveland jumps into the artists’ stories. The chapters interweave the larger political dynamics with the personal narratives of the artists, providing background on the family and cultural contexts that helped shape their identity and actions. All too often stories of social-change actors concentrate on the actions of activists and are devoid of the larger political and social context. Cleveland does a masterful job of linking the narratives across the personal, community and societal levels."
—Craig Zelizer, CommunityArtsNetwork

From the Publisher

"Cleveland’s writing about artists in far corners pulling together and creating moral centres for healing and political reconciliation is sometimes ponderous but couldn’t be more relevant now that we have a global leader in Barack Obama who has made community-organising the centrepiece of his presidency. It may be that we have outlived the long period of ethical (and aesthetic) neutrality in our culture, now that politics is finally catching up with art."

Suzi Gablik

"Through the eloquent telling of stories of ordinary people daring to speak out, fight back and take action, Bill Cleveland shows us the most precious gift innate in all of us, the power to imagine and create. The act of creation can heal our deepest wounds and turn crisis into opportunity."

Lily Yeh

"Each of the groups Cleveland profiles started small, but grew to provide essential safe space where communities could come together and heal. Community art offered a way forward: a chance to acknowledge and confront painful histories, to begin to resolve current conflicts, and to imagine a different kind of future."

Brooke Jarvis

"Art and Upheaval turns a world eager for hope and good news onto the fact that everyday around the world there are artists daring to speak truth (and beauty!) to power in ways that build understanding and reconciliation where there were previously only hardened hearts and ruin."

David Griffith

"Cleveland gets down to gritty detail by documenting the censorship, government-sponsored arson, and institutional apathy that have threatened these outposts, as well as the specific historic moments that sparked them. All told, these are success stories against the odds."

Josie Rawson