By Contributing Artist & Writer, Pattie Ann Hale (www.pattieannhale.com)

“The idea of changing or improving the world is alien to me and seems ludicrous. Society functions, and always has, without the artist. No artist has ever changed anything for better or worse.” This statement was made by artist, Georg Baselitz. His art, portraying a deformed, despaired, inverted and mutilated humanity, reflects his views of hopelessness.

The Inner Need

Wassily Kandinsky

Artists have a crucial role in changing the world. We can bring positive or negative change. Wassily Kandinsky, the father of abstract art, put forth the idea in his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911), that artists are actually the catalysts of culture – the ones who foremost change the world. Baselitz ironically studied Kandinsky’s theories  – obviously so that he may travel in the opposite direction of Kandinsky’s positive ideas. About the artist’s responsibility and calling to bring people into a positive evolution of thought, Kandinsky said, “The artist is not a ‘Sunday child’ for whom everything immediately succeeds. He does not have the right to live without duty. The task that is assigned to him is painful, it is a heavy cross for him to bear.” Kandinsky expressed that in order for artists to make a difference in the world they must work from an inner need, expressing the internal workings in a tangible form. Working from the inner need is the key for authentic art. It is the drive, the rhythms of the soul, the pondering of the heart, the place where Holy Spirit speaks. It is the place where the story develops. This makes for powerful ‘change-the-world’ kind of art. How did Baselitz abandon Kandinsky’s beauty? How did he so severely miss the point? He wanted to.

Really Needed

Artist David Hockney, said, “If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He’s not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he’s really needed.”  Really needed.

In the spring of 2003, three young filmmakers, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole from California naively traveled to Africa to make a documentary. There, while in northern Uganda, they stumbled upon a massive group of children who, night after night, would walk barefoot to the center of their city to sleep – all together in a mass of humanity that resembled a nightmarish holocaustic grave – all so that they may escape the fear and real threat of being abducted by a militant group called the LRA, who, led by an evil man named Joseph Kony, abducted children to make them child soldiers and sex slaves, often causing the children to kill other children or their own parents. The captured children and other victims were often mutilated but left living. Ears, noses and lips being cut from a victim who must endure those scars were a common reminder of the LRA’s terror. The threat was overwhelming to these children and they were doing the only thing they could do to try to find safety.  At being exposed to this horror, the young film-making artists’ adventurous romp to travel to a far-off land and make a film turned into a burdening responsibility – a call to do something. They realized they were really needed.

The hopeful documentary that came out of that experience, Invisible Children: Rough Cut (2005), began a revolution to see change in Africa for the afflicted children. The film-makers started by showing the film to their friends and family, but before long it spread grassroots-style to thousands and then millions of others through the impassioned work of teams of people who packed up screening equipment and traveled around in RV’s showing the film to high-schools, colleges, churches, and in other venues where they could get a space.

What They Had in Their Hands

These three filmmakers saw the need to tell a story of unimaginable horror and injustice in order to make a difference in the lives of these children. They had been moved in their soul – they felt the inner need – and out of that place, they used what they had in their hands to make a positive change for their African friends and for the world. This story is the beginning of Invisible Children, the organization that has continued to make documentaries telling the plight of the Ugandan people and their struggle against the evil militant group that abducts, and abuses children forcing them to be child soldiers and sex slaves. The cultic evils of the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, is being brought to light by the creativity of Invisible Children so that justice can take place. IC has unconventionally rallied for nine years, bringing together a massive army of it’s own focused on awareness by simply retelling the truthful story. This massive army takes action through what they individually have in their hands – such as a cell phone, ipod or computer – or perhaps a flyer, a banner, or a t-shirt. IC is an awareness organization, which inspires the action of individuals to voice a collective concern… to save these kids and stop the violence.

Unprecedented Connectivity

IC has now launched a brilliant creative campaign called Kony 2012 to bring awareness to the evils of Joseph Kony’s trail of destruction in Uganda and his continued horror in DR Congo, South Sudan, and CAR. Their creative efforts should inspire all artists to realize that seemingly impossible things can be accomplished in this new world of social media and connectivity. In March, when they launched their thirty-minute documentary, which tells their personal story within the immense complicated issue and their desire to see change come to the situation, it went viral. It received over thirty-seven million hits in three days – which is unprecedented. What made this happen? At the root, at the beginning, was that the filmmakers recognized the sense of responsibility to create change and they pushed on in the continued effort to create work that was inspiring and compelling because it was processed out of that inner need. They recognized that they could be world changers. They had confidence in it and they saw it happen with this campaign. Their 30-minute video shook the world. Even now, though there is much controversy around their campaign, which I will not confer in the scope of this article, the Invisible Children Kony 2012 campaign to bring awareness to the issue of Uganda’s plight and Africa’s threat of Joseph Kony has done its job. It changed the world and set millions on a path of research and compassion about this issue. No matter what side of the issue one is on, or how in-depth one wants to get involved, or how much one wants to say it was a frenzy that has now crashed and burned, the unprecedented power of creativity has been shown to be effective in changing the world – in shifting a culture.

How Do You Change The World?

So how do you change the world? In the case of the IC’s Kony 2012 video, it was on target with every element Kevin Allocca, Youtube’s trends manager, states is needed for a video to go viral, thus getting the world’s attention. These elements apply for any creative medium. In a TED presentation in November 2011, Allocca identifies these three elements: tastemakers, participation, and unexpectedness. In order for a video to be catapulted into a larger audience, a tastemaker – someone who is known in a broader arena to bring new and interesting things to attention – must take interest in our art and put it out there. IC partnered with several tastemakers – celebrities – to make a call for action with this issue as they launched their newest documentary. The second element for virality is participation. In other words there must be an active community that will participate in sharing your art. This is only one of the crucial reasons why artists need to be together and support one another in community. Participation with one another’s work is how we become a part of something bigger than ourselves. IC had worked for nine years building a community of people to support their issue. Millions of people had seen their previous documentaries. IC respected and honored their community by truthfully giving them the empowered feeling that if they shared it on twitter or posted it on facebook, or put out signs or posters, or wore the t-shirt that they were a part of the whole, as they truthfully are. They were not being grandiose or conniving in doing this. IC believes in and understands the power of the individual using what he has in his hands – using the individual small means of changing the world to give a huge voice to an issue. They understood that almost anyone could participate in these simple ways and that the effect would be massive. The last element is unexpectedness. In a world where we are inundated with stimuli – visually, audibly, through media and advertising, the art we present to the world must be over-the-top outstanding in some unexpected new way.  IC had been telling the story of the plight in Uganda for nine years. So what did they do that was unexpected with this video? It’s ironic really. They used the campaign year, when everyone is paying attention to the news and the media as well as signs and posters, to plug their story into the frenzy and pop out something that would cause everyone to ask, “Who is Kony?” They wanted to make him famous, like the way a presidential candidate you have never heard of becomes famous in a day. They wanted to make him famous, not to celebrate him or support him but to put a stop to his tactics. It was brilliant. It was unexpected. It was effective. Almost everyone knows who Kony is now and they also know the story of Invisible Children. The inner need has been expressed in such a way that the fulfillment of the need is being actualized.

Your Calling as a Kingdom Artist

As Christian artists, we are called to social advocacy. Because we are ones who see, we should not turn away from a social conscious that through our creativity will evoke the goodness of God to bring change to issues that are wrong in our world. We should peer deeper. The safe old wineskin of keeping our lives and our creativity within the walls of the church and our Christian circles are bursting. New wine has already come and those grasping at the remnants of the old container are missing the journey of the renewal that is even now happening. Typical, unoriginal art just won’t cut it. You must ask yourself if your art is really doing anything to change the world. Do you recognize the inner need? Are you producing art from that place? Do you have confidence that your art will change the world? Are you applying yourself toward that? Are you connecting with tastemakers – building into a community – pushing your art into new unexpected expressions?  Are you serving others with your art? Are you conscious of your influence? We always are influencing others, in large and small ways, in close relationships and from afar. We can be like Kandinsky and realize our forward-moving role in culture or we can be like Baselitz and decide that we don’t want to pursue the God-given responsibility. Anything other than life is death. Which will you choose? If you are an artist actively moving in your calling, you are a powerful agent against the woes of our culture. You have a voice.

Look for the upcoming article, “Finding Your Voice” by Pattie Ann Hale.