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The Aesthetic experience by Rosa Naparstek

The Aesthetic Experience:

The Connection Between Art and Personal/Political Transformation

 

Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Keats “Ode On A Grecian Urn”

 

I am an artist and a political activist, although no longer in the usual sense of the word, working to develop a new body politic integrating knowing and feeling and the personal/political.

My goal is to use my artwork as a point of departure for participants’ self-exploration and to explore art as the “still point” of connection to self and interconnection with other. The aesthetic experience can create an open moment allowing us to be more emotionally present and sensitive.

Personal Background:

In college I studied physics, hoping that by understanding the fundamental elements of the universe, matter and energy, I would understand the workings of the world. Finding the approach too mechanistic, I searched for answers in other disciplines: philosophy, literature, urban studies and law. As a student, I was a political activist, and later, after a few years of teaching, I became an attorney in furtherance of my commitment to social and political change. I practiced law for several years and then I began to realize that fundamental political change could not occur without personal transformation. This critical shift in perspective challenged me to look for answers at a deeper level and led me to the understanding that process is a political act: how we are with one another is as important as what we do.

While traveling in Europe, I visited many museums including Rome’s Museum of Modern Art where I saw an exhibit by Fausto Melotti. The work consisted entirely of little bits and pieces of torn white paper strung on wire. Its simplicity and ability to convey meaning affected me deeply. It uncovered a desire to be an artist and open up parts of myself that had been closed. I began the process of becoming more connected to my own feeling state.

I work with found objects, family photographs and text. I explore both the “ordering of things”—how we attach meaning to “random” juxtaposition of objects—and “the order of things”—looking at our inner landscapes for the emotional roots of the world we create personally and politically. Much of what I do centers around childhood memories and experiences and is concerned with questions of cruelty: its source and transformation. I believe the fundamental human questions are about good and evil and that each person, culture, and even each civilization asks these through the lens of its own experience. Since I can remember, I have always wanted to know what makes people capable of cruelty. I have come to believe that the primary source of evil lies in our ability to deny our own pain, fear, and vulnerability. This enquiry has informed my artistic and political work.

Numbness and insensitivity towards one’s own pain, in turn equals numbness and insensitivity towards others. When examining one’s reactions closely, one might observe that the first spontaneous reaction to others is a feeling for and with them, compassion or empathy, a participation of the soul. But the second reaction restricts this emotional flow… The numbness, instituted for oneself, must be continued towards others, just as every attitude towards the self is bound to expand towards others.

“The Concept of Evil” by Eva Pierrakos, 1979

Conceptual Framework

The goal of my artwork became a point of departure for self-exploration and to explore art as the “still point” of connection to self and other. The still point of presence in the experience of art (the aesthetic experience) is its transformative power to move us beyond our usual contracted state of fear to a tender and vulnerable flow of feelings and inner experience.

Art's inherent ability to open a moment of presence is an antidote to the numbness described above. Art can open the viewer to his/her own life experience and if in the power of that aesthetic moment of truth, the viewer is in a community building group, the potential for honest, authentic communication is made even greater. To be able to speak the truth and be who we are in the moment is the foundation for communication that leads to communion and community.

I present my work in conjunction with what I refer to as Community Building/Circles of Engagement in order to explore the connection between art and personal/political transformation. The purpose of these circles is to create a context in which the participants can experience an honest and meaningful connection with one another. Their experience of self at a deeper level can make way for a different kind of political work, taking us deeper into our own and collective process. To facilitate honest communication we move beyond our social masks to explore the role of feelings and emotions in the personal/political sphere. The major emphasis in this work is authentic presence. This means being attentive to what is going on in us and among us.

Previous and prevailing art movements challenge traditional forms and boundaries, questioning what is art, who is an artist and the relationship of art to the viewer/public, experimenting with many forms. But few, if any, attend to the viewers/audience as a group in the context of the art experience, and the inherent ability of art to open a sacred space within that can be shared in community.

The arts/process-arts nexus can be new terrain in what is usually considered “political art,” with the potential to create new forms of art and different models for political work.

Community Building

Community building is a growing worldwide movement that challenges our usual way of being in the world. It focuses on process, thereby altering hierarchical forms of organization that often lead to alienation and isolation. The movement, long underway in a hundred manifestations, reflects the mission to pay attention to HOW we are with one another and not just to what we do. The huge developments in the twentieth century, from meta-psychology to information processing, all reflect a drive to develop at the process level. Process arts is a necessary parallel to the liberal arts and encompasses various disciplines that:

"Community building" also refers to a specific group process developed by Dr. M. Scott Peck. Although there are many approaches to community building, I use the process described in his book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, because of its elegant simplicity and focus on presence, the still point, as the field for community building. This still point, arrived at in the context of the group is the nexus/interface with the ‘still point” in the aesthetic experience.

The book describes four basic psychological stages that form a cohesive group:

  1. Pseudo-community
  2. Chaos
  3. Emptiness
  4. Community

  1. Pseudo-community is the dynamic that exists when people in the group first meet, are polite, somewhat guarded, and relate to one another, each from their own social mask.
  2. Chaos is the conflict stage, which develops after people lose patience, get annoyed and drop their social mask revealing their dark side.
  3. Emptiness is the stage that concerns us most and occurs when participants have exhausted themselves in unsuccessfully trying to "fix" or change each other. It is a moment of surrender to the chaos and disappointment in what is happening in the group. This moment of surrender is also acceptance of the truth of the experience. This acceptance, surrender, is an emptying of all expectations, desires and requirement for a specific outcome. This “emptiness” is the still point, the open field, where people begin to speak their truth, having little to hide anymore.
  4. Community: from honest communication to communion to community—manifesting a palpable community spirit in which people appreciate the process, themselves and each other. Community building is to the collective what spiritual practice is to the individual.

 

Community cannot take root in a divided life.  Long before community assumes external shape and form, it must be present as a seed in the undivided self:  only as we are in communion with ourselves can we find community with others.  Community is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, the flowing of personal identity and integrity into the world of relationships.

Parker P. Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Authentic community, once achieved, allows easy dialogue and harmony in collective action.

Drawing on my work experience in interpersonal dynamics and process arts I present my artwork in conjunction with Community Building/Circles of Engagement, a safe, respectful environment for honest communication beyond social masks to explore:

  1. the role of feelings and emotions in personal/political life,
  2. the how of interaction, and
  3. the connection between art and personal/political transformation.


It is my belief that the way in which we interact with one another in the work we do is as important as what we do. I consider process a political act moving us into a new model that heals the split between means/ends, mind/body, being/doing, I/thou.  My audience is the general public and everyone who yearns to be present and real. When I show my images and poems, Childescapes, the ensuing group experience reveals a vast hunger for meaning, purpose and community. The care and attention to how we are with one another is what will ultimately sustain and guide us in our work and models the world we want to create.

KIDS’ GUERNICA exemplifies all aspects of the aesthetic experience and the community-building process both for the children and the adults working with them. It is both a flowering of all the ideas in this paper and a perfect opportunity for art and community building to come together in the spirit that I have described, nourishing each other. The children, only too familiar with the shadow side of humanity, reach deep within themselves to collectively envision and manifest a better world through their peace murals. KIDS’ GUERNICA is a calling (“Beauty is a calling.” —John O’Donahue) heard by a growing world community to reach across the great divide to experience our interconnectedness, interdependency and even perhaps for an elusive second—our oneness. In this realm, there is of course no question or issue of social justice, for we understand that we are profoundly each other and each other’s keeper.

 

Rosa Naparstek

rosa.naparstek@verizon.net

 

Note: This paper was given by Rosa Naparstek at the Symposium "Art Education for Social Justice" held in Tallahassee, Florida, January 18, 2010

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