Here, the goal comes from seeing how art can play an active role in the community. The idea is based on the fact that art can be healing and provide a way for people to come together and express their concerns and emotions.
Having this in Detroit would create a positive outcome for the city. Detroit has gone through many hardships, and bringing forth a positive environment can create beauty. This can also provide a frame work to allow people to come together, which will help the people realize that the concerns that they have are not different amongst each other.
Community art will allow the people of Detroit to come together not just focus on themselves but all the participants and the problem at hand. It provides interaction while providing an outreach for people to expose
their identities allowing understanding to who they are as well as to their own
community. It presents development to personal growth that can eventually
affect the neighborhood as well because art allows stereotypes of age, race,
and culture to be erased.
During these times people recognize only the positives;
looking to each other’s strengths and potentials. This creates positive energy
where people feel accepted and become part of a family. During a community
project one feels a belonging and is able to feel productive in a way that is
meaningful. People learn from one another and discover common interests and
concerns. It becomes a learning environment where everyone can take a role and
engage in communication that express a love helping to each other.
Further more, community art creates open-mindedness to
explore and evaluate all things possible. It creates a sense of place while encouraging people to be open minded and try new things.
The importance of community art is that it provides a group
experience. It does not single
anyone out, and only encourages all to participate. The experiences become a
joy and allows people
I believe in order to attain this, one voice needs to be heard but it needs to be a strong voice and one where people can come together and feel that they can be apart of that voice instead of being separate.
Mukti Khanna express this outcome through his article Creating Cultural Competency: Integrating Person- Centered Expressive Arts in Multicultural Pedagogy, while Senna S. Lowe expresses this outcome in the article Creating Communit: Art for Community Development. Throughout both these papers, Khana and Lowe, explore how art helps communities and states many examples of how a specific community works together to create a project. During these times people come together and appreciate one another and put aside their differences to create a positive out come on the situation, which brings closeness to themselves and their community.
These articles arise the notion how art is therapeutic and how it arises the identity of the individual and the group. They explain how involvement communicates and stimulates a reaction. People start to respond and help one another. The art creates a method of formulating engagement to their community to provide a better existence to what is already there.
In his article Khana quotes Natalie Rogers, stating, "The combination of expressive arts- the drama- and person- centered listening are powerful, creative ways to become aware of our feelings, about world events and to transform these feeling into self- responsible action. The expressive arts bring us into balance by engaging out imagination, intuition and spiritual capacities. He further states, "moving from art form to art form releases layers of inhibition, bringing one to the center in connection with the individual creative force. This center opens one to the universal energy source, bringing vitality and a sense of oneness."
Lowe furthers this idea by stating "art is both given by an represents the community that is its context." "Collective art is shared; it permits man to feel one with others in a meaningful, rich, productive way."She further explains "learning new methods of self-expression and receiving positive responses, individuals added creative dimensions to their self-concepts and discovered new ways to represent themselves to others."
Art allows layers to dissolve and provides a way to express what concerns are around. Art allows people to learn and share. Its fun and provides a process to understanding and meaning.
By examining these articles, one can notice how involvement in the community can provide a positive outcome. It creates a center where heart and unity emerge as the victor. People gather together to create peace and happiness. They will be able to acknowledge this outcome because the project will stand and show a remembrance to the occurrence and idea for new possibilities in the future.
