Social and Collaborative Art
This article describes the role that art can play in a society and gives several examples of how artists work collaboratively.
Art contributes to many social functions too. Parades feature colorful banners, extravagant floats and plastic inflatable characters from pop culture. Many ceremonies and rituals rely on works of art to act as vessels for the spirit world. Totem poles tell elaborate stories, using real and mythic animals to illustrate them. The Haida totem poles pictured below have a hierarchical structure to them so that the most important character in the story is at the top of the pole.
Haida Totems, wood and paint, no date. Collection of the Burke Museum of Natural History, Seattle
In another example, one of the functions for the calabashes mentioned above is to distribute beer at both social festivals and sacred rituals.
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt pictured below combines thousands of individually created quilts, each bearing the name of a victim of AIDS, into a collective image of loss and remembrance for family members and friends. Exhibiting the quilt around the United States has brought awareness about the disease to the general public.
NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, Washington, DC
Artists sometimes work in collaboration with others that have special technical training or knowledge in a particular medium to create something they couldn't do on their own.
The Chicago Public Art Group is a collaborative organization creating murals, mosaics and other art works for public spaces. Each project carries a theme significant to its specific location: from a colorful mural seen by commuters at a rapid transit stop to Hopes and Dreams, a large mosaic panel in downtown Chicago welcoming the new millennium. Each project is unique and involves the work of many artists, planners and volunteers.
As a final example, the Burning Man celebration at Black Rock City in Nevada draws thousands of people - artists and non-artists, in a week-long festival of art installations, performances and elaborate costumes that surround the construction and ultimate immolation of a massive effigy known as Burning Man. The festival's creativity and expression serves a communal social function. In the photo below you can see the concentric layout of Black Rock City – constructed and taken down each year – with the Burning Man sculpture isolated in the middle.
Arial view of the Burning Man Celebration, Black Rock City, Nevada
Source: Christopher Gildow, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, http://opencourselibrary.org/art-100-art-appreciation/
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