An Ethical Community-Embedded Artistic Practice
This article, Toolkit for Community-Embedded Artistic Practice by Lane Michael Stanley, offers a toolkit of questions to consider for those who seek to have a community-embedded artistic practice, based on his own experience in recovery housing and his time developing plays with unhoused people.
What I love about this article is how the Stanley describes the experience and authenticity of being embedded in a community. If you are spending considerable time in a community, contributing and talking with longtime members of the community, people may ask you why you’re there. From Stanley:
Come up with a real answer—not a good answer, but a real answer. If you are in a community space because you want to “help,” that’s not a real answer. Why do you want to help? If you are not a member of this community (for example, you’re handing out flyers at a soup kitchen but you don’t usually eat lunch there), why would you come to this space rather than any other?
You may discover a hard truth asking yourself this question. Maybe you do want to check a box, or feel good about yourself for being there, or be seen doing the work. You may discover that you are not the right person for your project or that your project is not responsive to the community.
Stanley talks about making the community part of the process from beginning to end, from befriending people in the community in their places to hiring community members as consultants and producers on the final project. I love this way of considering community, especially when one plans to make art about or with a community.