Creativity is dead.

Creativity is dead. Or is it?

For an analysis paper I’m working on, I’ve contacted a few artists who partner with non-profits to affect social change. When asked why there aren’t more artist and non-profit partnerships, every artist I interviewed listed two reasons: no money and lack of creative thinking. Non-profits are too busy keeping the lights burning and planning programs to worry about encouraging their small, overworked and underpaid staff members to be creative.

Let alone start a new program or partnership involving an artist.

I mean, art is an expensive extra that only affects a small percentage of the population, right? On the contrary, art is everywhere in our society, and it impacts everyone. Art extends beyond an art museum, studio or gallery into everyday life. Images, poetry and performance make messages more memorable than our traditional PR tactics like newsletters, brochures and yes, even blogs.

The inspiration for my research in non-profit art social movements came from a single dance performance I saw last year. A dance professor and choreographer created a piece that is performed by a professional dance company chronicling her personal experience with the Chinese international adoption process. She partners with Families With Children from China and the Panda Academy in Indianapolis to create awareness of their programs during performances. Before experiencing this dance, I had read countless articles about international adoption trends—I even wrote a paper about it.

But “Red Thread” brought Chinese adoption alive. Watching the dancers cut through the burdensome, government “red tape” and seeing the Chinese girls jump into the arms of their adoptive parents made international adoption real. Powerful. Memorable.

Another artist partners with a housing fund in Minneapolis, Minn. She had already been creating artwork based on the concept of “home.” Now the housing fund owns some of her work, and she travels to various corporations, non-profit groups and government offices to speak about her art, the concept of home and affordable housing. She says that art convenes people. It brings them together so they can hear a message in a different way. Most people wouldn’t attend a brown bag about affordable housing, but they’d go to hear an artist speak about a painting that is hanging in the office.

Non-profits rarely think creatively to convene an audience. Traditional brochures, fundraisers and speaker’s bureaus win out. But just think for a minute how powerful art can be in bringing people together, making a moment memorable and in communicating a message.

Maybe art could bring social change.

-Rachel

The YouTube jihad

Last week I read an op-ed in The Washington Times about the removal of "anti-Islamist" material on sites like YouTube. Apparently, a number of users found videos that framed all Muslims as terrorists to be offensive, and they flagged the videos. Eventually, as per YouTube's blanket policy on flaggings, they were removed. The author of the op-ed believes that the removal of "anti-Islamist" materials is being spearheaded by Islamist terrorists. In the authors words, Americans need to "combat the terrorists' cyber-jihad," and regain control of sites like YouTube, who bend their will to terrorists.

This op-ed only reinforces, in my opinion, the belief that many Americans hold: All Muslims are terrorists and Islam is bad. The concept is obviously mirrored in the media, especially entertainment media, wherein the "bad guy" is almost always played by a foreigner. Before the Wall came down, movie terrorists were German and Russian. Today they're Middle Eastern and Muslim. While stereotypes will never disappear in society, I find the remediality of this particular one to be alarming.

The portrayal of Muslims as terrorists also perpetuates a general fear of the group by Americans. To go so far as to claim that terrorists like al Queda are actually using their multitude of resources to flag videos on YouTube? The idea is ridiculous, and tantamount to bigoted fear-mongering on the part of the author. It's this kind of thinking that gets Muslim travelers frisked unnecessarily, removed from planes, and feared by their fellow passengers.

~Christy