By Zurah Taylor

Three Key Major Ideas

·      There has been a shift in the United States Art community, resulting in a “new genre” of public art. This new genre had influenced different funding foundations to change the guidelines for artist they want to fund. Particularly the MacArthur foundation changing there language to specifically reject any art in favor of community based organizations that are working to promote social justice and democracy through media. This shift in funding had really shocked me.

·      The conservative’s view on community outreach. When he says Welfare and arts funding can be viewed as “symptomatic of a general cultural and moral decline. He then goes on to say conservatives view such programs as robing the rich of spiritual growth that is provided by individual acts of philanthropy, it implies that conservatives wish to take part in community outreach to feel good about their selves.  

·      The way artist are more commonly engaging with their community participants, they are acting in more of a parental role using their pieces to inspire them to participate in their own community’s recovery.

I can fully can get behind the notion of including the community that one is creating the piece for or about in ones process of constructing said piece. It seems to be a great way of enriching the work while also ensuring that the communities voice is being displayed not just the foreign artist. 

Three questions 

·      One question I have is can someone (a foreign artist) truly able to create community based art, that serve the people in communities they are not a part of?

·      How can community based art get more funding?

·      I believe community based art is meant to enrich the community, but it seems easy to fall into the trap of trying “fix” said community. How can we avoid that?