The "Think Global, Act Local" movement has been used as justification for eating local foods and doing environmental clean-ups in your own neighborhood.  The arts are widely used as a tool for fostering small local changes that do ultimately impact broader global relationships.  So, can the pithy phrase "Think Global, Act Local" also be used to promote public art? 

There are two great perspectives on this issue. Over at A Blade of Grass, Juliana Driever gives a great description of how art can be an "act local" force:

Art work that is in some sense local as I understand it, takes its actual location - its context - as its starting point, is grounded in lived experience, and its tangible, immediate conditions. Social art and self-taught art, might find common ground in this kind of site-specificity, taking localized concerns as a place to pick up and start making something. For both, context can be a medium and a message.

Both kinds of work can also claim responsibility to a specific place, community, or issue (and not just for the standard duration of a biennial exhibition), and create a self-determined criteria of value, which is to say, the significance of the work is held in direct relationship to those who participate in it or with it.

Luis Gallardo pushes past the "Think Global, Act Local" paradigm and encourages us to think about how this concept can actually prepare businesses for sustainable growth through "Think Holistic, Act Personal."

Simply put, global is too broad and undefined. It implies that we should standardize and lead from the center, so that we can better drive efficiencies that meet the burgeoning demands of local markets. This is in stark contrast with thinking holistically, which I define as the ability to take into account complex linkages and inter-connections in order to facilitate decision-making of the highest order.

Similar to thinking globally, acting locally does not touch upon the essence of human behavior—what we do or don’t do in response to change, challenge, and the status quo. Acting personal, however, mirrors human dynamics and the multi-dimensional profile of each individual. Act personal allows you to engineer communities, making messages and actions a relevant and timely response to the big picture needs of people.

Art opens people's eyes to the world around them (and worlds that only exist in our brains) through colors, sounds, smells, touch, and by sparking emotional situations.  Art can poignantly pique one's curiosity, and if we view art as a method for sparking people's interest in engaging with the world around them, then perhaps the phrase "Think Global Impact, Act Creative Locally" could be applicable.

What do you think?  Is "Think Global, Act Local" an applicable categorization of how the arts can be used to spark social change?  

Fill in the blanks of "Think [  ], Act [  ]" and comment below with your pithy phrase for the relationship between the arts and social change!


Written by Catherine J Howard
www.131313sketchbookproject.com

In my wanderings in Tampere, I kept wondering aloud about how around every corner, another large museum pops up.  In 1998, there were 260 publicly funded museums in Finland, which has a population smaller than the island of Manhattan.  How in the heck does this work?

Now, Finland only has about 5.3 million citizens, but the total budget for all arts funding is 28.3 million Euros.   In 2009, the Finnish government spent 14, 354, 910 Euros on funding to individual artists alone.

The “Holy Grail” for Finnish visual artists is a five-year salary, paid for by the Finnish art council.  [Every artist I know back in Durham, North Carolina probably just spit out their coffee all over the computer screen.  IKNOWRIGHT??]  Artists and art professors can apply for a salary from the government for 6 months to 5 years.  In the 2010 state budget, the amount of the monthly grant was specified to be 1,558.55 EUR.  [Again, every artist I know back in Durham just screamed, "Hell yeah, I could live on $2000 a month!"]

But government funding alone does not make a vibrant and engaging arts scene.  The renowned educational system here [seriously, click that link] heavily promotes critical thinking and self-reliance, which explains why many of the Finnish visual artists I have met are not content to live from grant to grant.  They seek to create impactful, self-sustaining projects.

Teemu Räsänen and Pekka Ruuska (who now runs The Strata Project) began building the Arteles residency program in April 2009 while they were still in art school. During their studies abroad, they had analyzed how many “arts funding” infrastructures actually place individual artists at the bottom of the hierarchy and force them to beg for menial funds from institutions.  

Rather than join in the fray, they decided to found an organization that would allow them to speak as equals to these institutions and advocate for support from the artists’ perspective.  They have been breaking the mold (running as a corporation rather than a non-profit, running a residency for international artists rather than supporting solely Finnish artists) and positioning themselves as a formidable voice of advocacy for artists ever since.

Now, artists, before you begin moving en masse to Finland, let us all consider: What is one small change you could make within your life or your organization that would promote self-reliance and critical thinking through art?

***

Written by Catherine J Howard
www.131313sketchbookproject.com

Visionary solutions can’t be forced.  They just kind of… happen.  That “Eureka!” response to an obstacle requires hours of thought about the potential solutions that have all been maddeningly mulled over time and time before.

Finns are exceptionally good at innovation.  Romantic composer Jean Sibelius. Open-source software visionary Linus Torvalds.  World-renowned information philosopher Pekka Himanen.  Founders of the pioneer fashion company Marimekko Viljo and Armi Ratia.  Women’s rights activist Minna Canth.  Cell phone inventors Nokia. I think it’s the long winters — nothing really to do but sit around and think.

Developing a brand new solution requires spending hours and hours pondering all facets of the problem you are facing.  In these days holed up and staring out at the snow, I am defining the questions that this project is seeking to answer. These questions are tossing about in my brain like stones tumbling against each other in a polisher:

What defines “visual art”?
How is visual art incorporated into daily life in this community?
How do artists view their role in their community?
How do community members view the artists?
How is the support system for the artists structured?
How do artists cultivate trust with the other members of their community?
How do artists cultivate trust with people from outside their community?
How to artists spark productive dialogue around social responsibility?
What elements of the social infrastructure are required for artists to incite change?
What solutions do the artists provide?
Is art really necessary to the resolution of the community’s dilemmas?

The snow and isolation in Hämeenkyrö force me to sit still and think them all over.  And over.  And over. The combination of time, quiet, a plentitude of creative minds, and sheer stubbornness will uncover the answers to these questions because artists do innovative things.  Do you have more questions for me to throw into the polisher?  Do you already have answers to these questions?  Feel free to leave them as a comment or send me an email.