Art in Context by Mette Newth
Dear ALL!
Mette Newth wishes to contribute to our discussions around our intervention project World Films for Equal Dignity. Please see Mette Newth's biographical paragraph on our Advisory Board page.
Mette sends us a report on a colloquium on art and conflict resolution that took place in Oslo when Mette was Rector of the Oslo National College of the Arts (I gave a presentation in the framework of this colloquium).
Warm thanks, dear Mette!
Evelin
ART IN CONTEXT
COUNCIL OF EUROPE’S EXPERT COLLOQUIUM OCT. 7- 9 2002
ON INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE AND CONFLICT PREVENTION
THE CHALLENGE OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Presenting:
“ART AS AN ARENA FOR INVESTIGATING CONFLICTS”
by Ms Mette Newth, author and former rector of the Oslo National College of the Arts
Oslo October 2002
"There is no true art without sincere human compassion" Leonardo da Vinci
Humans create art and culture, and art and culture shape humans and their societies. Cultural identity is of fundamental importance to the individual as well as to society; as pertinent to each person’s self-conception and expression, as to a community's common framework of reference. No culture is truly static, nor is any people's culture ever a solitary island. Throughout history cultural encounters have taken place; cultures have influenced each other, often mutually beneficial, but sometimes to the loss of one of the parties.
Far too many nations still struggle to accept their state of multiculturalism in the wake of (unwanted) refugees and immigrants. Far too many conflicts and wars stem from suppression of cultures and/or faiths, segregation or ghettofication of peoples. As nations and as individuals we need to recognise that human rights and cultural diversity are fundamental to the safety, dignity and well being of all individuals and societies. We are all responsible for contributing to changes of attitudes, practices and politics.
Towards the end of the 20th Century, yet another devastating conflict erupted in the war-torn Balkans. The then president Milosevic of former Yugoslavia instigated systematic ethnic cleansing on Albanians in Kosovo, and in Spring of ‘99 the NATO-allies launched an intensive war of bombs in order to force the regime in Belgrade to stop the atrocities in Kosovo. The Serbian rulers’ systematic suppression of the Albanian language in schools, public service and medias was undoubtedly the early warning signal of worse to come; the encroachment and discrimination based on ethnic origin or religious beliefs.
Recognition of our common responsibility constitutes the platform for the further education project “Art as an arena for investigating conflicts” organised by the Oslo National College of the Arts - ONCA in 2000. The fact that Norway as a member of NATO had participated in the military action against the rulers in Belgrade, served to emphasise the moral obligation to initiate a dialogue with both Albanians and Serbs.
ONCA, representing the highest level of education for visual arts and design, dance, theatre and opera in Norway, thus accepted the challenge posed by the international conference ”Culture and conflict prevention” held in Norway in 1999, jointly hosted by the Norwegian chairmanship of the OSCE and the Council of Europe. The OSCE Annual Review Conference in Vienna in October ‘99 also underlined the need to establish ongoing conflict-solving programmes within the field of art and culture with emphasis on the need to aim projects at young people as an audience.
The ONCA project aimed to investigate conflicts between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds, cultures or faiths through artistic approaches, techniques and methods. In order to ensure professional attitudes and skills on the part of the participants, the ONCA designed the project as a further education programme. Regarding communication as vital to the co-operation within the group, the disciplines of scenic and visual arts were chosen, as these arts easily transcend language barriers.
Regarding the establishment of an arena for dialogue and interaction between equal partners with vastly different experiences and backgrounds as vital, and in respect for the participants’ need to freely engage in an innovative artistic process, the ONCA deliberately refrained from detailing the theme or predetermining the end result. However, it was evident that the project was not only personal journeys of enlightenment, but also aimed to result in public performances, as well as to contribute to establish more permanent further educational schemes such as this. Furthermore the ONCA underlined that the working methods and process of artistic interaction would be documented and presented as a model applicable to education on human rights and cross-cultural interaction.
Participants were selected tutors and students of art and professional artists from Pristina, Belgrade and Oslo. The project, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spanned 6 months of 2000. The programme included a week of lectures for the Norwegian participants focused on human rights and democracy-building, conflict analysis and the conditions for reconciliation, presented by Human Rights NGOs, Norwegian UN-officials, research and educational institutions and representatives of the organisations of Serbs and Kosovars, visits by all Norwegian participants to Belgrade and Pristina, institutional co-operation and exchange lectures, and last but not least, 6 weeks of intensive workshops in Oslo, also including discussions with human rights organisations.
The artists of Belgrade and Pristina who met in Oslo in June 2000 for the first week of workshop, had not been in contact since before the war, although some of the artists had actually worked professionally together in Belgrade before the "years of Apartheid", as expressed by a Kosovar actor. Evidently, the first week of their meeting was extremely difficult and painful. As organisers and fellow artists we knew that the participants, having committed themselves to the idea and aims of the programme, would strive to bridge their deep personal and political conflicts with the power of their professional skills, as they indeed did. By the end of the week, the individual artists as well as the group had established mutual trust on a professional level, the kind of interdependency that is fundamental to the success of any stage performance.
During the four months that passed before the whole group met for 5 weeks of intensive workshops in Oslo, email-contact was upheld and the Norwegian artists travelled to Pristina and the increasingly turbulent Belgrade. A few days before the whole group met in Oslo, the Milosevic regime came to an end, an event also influencing the artistic work of the group as well as the heated discussions of how and why, and who was to blame. Having a common goal of producing free expressions of quality, the Serbian and Kosovar artists continued their discussions, sometimes too sensitive for Norwegian ears. The Norwegians on the other hand, had a unique opportunity of investigating their role in a conflict of this horrendous magnitude, a self-critical study that most Western peacemakers and do-gooders would benefit from undertaking.
Since the project formally ended in Oslo on November 17th of 2000 with a public presentation of the artistic works in progress, the artists from Belgrade, Pristina and Oslo have kept in contact. Whereas the Norwegian artists now were able to freely travel between Belgrade and Pristina, the Serbian and Kosovar artists, only miles apart, paradoxically enough have to leave Yugoslavia to meet, in spite of all international peace keeping efforts.
Some of the artists are now working on joint projects, some have produced new work. Thus the MIMART dance theatre staged their performance "Made in Norway" on March 24 2001 in Belgrade, exactly two years after the NATO bombing began, a day loudly commemorated in Belgrade by supporters of the former president Milosevic.
The artist education institutions in Belgrade, Pristina and Oslo are connected through formal agreements, thus also being able to continue to manifest that cultural diversity, freedom of expression, opinion and belief are fundamental to the dignity and well being of individuals and to peace in any society.
What’s art got to do with conflict solving?
This question was frequently asked by many a human rights or conflict expert that participated as lecturers or advisers to our project, as well as by politicians or academicians – bluntly or covertly. The answer is simply that artists, although often quick to respond to the injustice of war or suppression, are no more qualified to engage in conflicts of war than any other professional group in society, say plumbers or bank directors. But neither are artists less able to undertake the individual and collective responsibility that follows from living in a world where the majority of their fellow humans constantly suffer the consequences of wars, poverty and hunger, and gross violations of their precious human rights.
To involve, engage and care I firmly believe to be the moral right and duty of all citizens. To remain indifferent seems to me to represent a precarious squandering of ones democratic right to voice and participate in the shaping of our common world. In this day and age of the superpowers’ war against terrorism, state leaders needing public support for their actions will more often than not count the silent bystander as part of the nodding majority.
Art is communication. Art makes an impact, on individuals as well as societies. When art is created in earnest and freely expressed, the poem or the painting, the play or the song, often accurately voices the indignity, pains or hopes of people. At the best of times, art even spurs changes of minds, attitudes and beliefs, this being some of the most important ingredients for social change.
History is full of examples of this, which may best be characterised as the artist’s self-defined role in society, that of investigating and expressing different understandings of reality, or questing values and preconceptions.
In recent times, Salman Rushdie’s novel, “Satanic Verses”, is probably the most stunning example of the social impact a work of art may have, both politically and culturally. The novel was deemed in Iran as highly blasphemous and subversive, worthy of a deadly “fatwa” proclaimed against the author, his translators and publishers.
Art in context
Increasingly, art and culture is being focused in cultural and educational politics, nationally as well as internationally, as a means of bridging conflicts and as contributions to the enhancement of mutual respect and understanding. The focus on the role of art in society is important to the higher education of artists, not least in view of the growing number of coming artists who wish to explore new arenas for performing their work. By providing art students with opportunities of exploring their artistic ambitions in a social context, the institutions will be able to respond to an aesthetic and ethic need expressed by societies.
As artistic expressions more frequently are being employed in human rights or peace education world wide, it seems evident that systematic co-operation and interaction must be encouraged between the institutions of higher education of artists, the NGO-community and institutions of research and education in general. To ensure that such co-operations are mutually beneficial for students, tutors and society alike, all parties must strive to enter into co-operation with open minds, respectful of each profession’s distinctive qualities and skills, and intent on freely exploring the new opportunities of expression such joint ventures will represent.
The reason for stressing these preconditions for fruitful co-operation and interaction, is to warn against attempts to make art to ideological measure, so to speak. The politically correct artwork, however honourable the intentions may be, tends to be boringly predictable. No doubt also the audience can also sense the underlying boredom of the artist dutifully creating the politically correct work.
Children and juveniles in particular are the targets of the politically correct works of art. Confronting children with the facts of injustice or war or starvation through a play filling the correct pedagogical or ideological requirements have been much favoured by teachers. Sadly often having no other impact than to stir the children’s already throbbing conscience.
Art made to measure lacks the power of conviction. When powered by sincerity and compassion, art changes opinions and lives. Educators of art know that the degree of impact a work of art may have, depends on the individual artist's professional skills and earnest dedication, his or her ability to freely explore the vast variety of human experience of reality. Educators of art also know that while artistic talent cannot be taught, anyone can learn to use the skills of our trades in more innovative or professional ways.
Learning artistic methodology from inside, so to speak, also allows for insight into the basic elements of art, such as meeting the challenges of aesthetics or communication, mastering the undercurrent of conflicts driving a drama, or establishing the relationship of trust between the artists that any good stage performance relies on.
This is an area for constructive cross-disciplinary co-operation and interaction that should indeed be focused on the curriculum of higher education of artists as well as teachers, and should be pursued in politics of culture and education in general.
Building bridges
This presentation aims to contribute to the discussion on preconditions for lasting, fruitful cultural diversity. Some of the lessons learned through our project might very well be useful in this context.
Ensuring equality
is crucial in any cross-cultural co-operation or interaction. The partners must have equal status and equal opportunities of influencing the agenda, the process or the project. This is a lesson also we learned, in spite of our efforts to avoid pre-defining our project. The concept of bridge building, so frequently used as a metaphor for co-operation across differences, should be thoroughly investigated. No bridge is ever built from only one side of the river. No co-operation is ever fruitful when defined by the one party. Any process of interaction or co-operation must be regarded as a process of mutual learning, and must therefore be open to adjustments and changes
An attitude of self-criticism
is crucial to the establishment of a fruitful environment for earnest dialogue. There is nothing more destructive to co-operation than self-righteousness, as the bloody conflict between Israel and Palestine is a painful proof of.
In our project it proved important to supply the participants both with broad background documentation of the conflict in Kosovo and information on Norway’s history of national independence, of discrimination of the ethnic minority of the Sami people, and current human rights problems in Norway.
Adopting this attitude of open self-criticism on the part of the ONCA as an institution and the Norwegian participants, helped to relieve our Serbian and Kosovar colleagues of their feeling of guilt and shame. To constantly remind all the participants that no nation can ever claim that “this could not have been us” also helped relieve the tension, and no less important; made it easier for the Norwegian participants to identify with and involve in the conflicting feelings of their Serbian and Kosovar colleagues. Personally I believe this – the abolition of “the innocent bystander” - to be crucial in conflict solving.
Recognising that cross-cultural co-operation is no easy ride
Ensuring the lasting mutual respect for cultural identity and human rights is a slow process, anywhere in the world. The fact that human rights must be respected above and beyond cultural traditions is hard to accept for many, particularly ethnic minorities already under pressure to integrate into the majority culture. All the more important to recognise the need to establish arenas for the continuous, free and earnest dialogue and interaction on all levels of society.
Children and young people are always the most vulnerable in any kind of conflict, but they also represent the group of any community most receptive to change. Undoubtedly, education represents by far the most significant arena of dialogue. It is through relentless efforts and systematic work within all levels of the educational system that deep-rooted attitudes and prejudices may be transformed into peaceful and constructive co-existence.
This obligation naturally also includes higher education for artists responsible for educating the future custodians of art expressions and creative communication between people.
However, the most important contribution to the prevention or avoidance of conflicts is to be aware of, and respond to, the “early warning” signals of conflicts, such as the suppression of language, culture and religious belief.
THE OSLO NATIONAL COLLEGE OF THE ARTS FURTHER EDUCATION PROJECT: “ART AS AN ARENA FOR INVESTIGATING CONFLICTS.”
PARTICIPANTS:
From Pristina, included the University of Pristina, Faculty of the Arts
Evner Petrovci, actor and director and tutor
Valbona Petrovci, pianist and tutor
Ernesta Zhubi, actress
Arta Dobroshi, actress
Mentor Zymberaj, assistant tutor of scenic movements
Zeni Bal’azhi, student of visual art
Eliza Hoxha, student of visual art
From Belgrade:
Nela Antonovic, choreographer and dancer
Ivana Joksimovic, dancer
Bojana Mladenovic, choreographer and dancer
Marko Gvero, actor
Marjia Obsenica actor
Zana Poliakov, visual artist.
From Norway:
Tutor from the Faculty of Theatre: Thea Stabell, actor and instructor
Tutor from the Faculty of Dance: Ingunn Rimestad, dancer
Tutor from the Faculty of Visual Arts: Steinar Christensen, visual artist
Hooman Sharifi, choreographer and dancer
Per Roar, dancer
John S. Kristensen, actor
Cathrine Myhre, actor
Anne Lise Stenseth, visual artist
Leif Gaute Staurland, visual artist.
Video documentation:
Karoline Frogner, film director
Maria Warsinsky, fim director
Oslo National College of the Arts project group:
Inger Lise Eid, Thea Stabell, Ingunn Rimestad, Steinar Christensen and Mette Newth
