The minister of human services and social security for Guyana, South America, Priya Manickchand, is a powerful woman. Powerful in her aspirations and in her success of developing programs for her country’s victims of domestic violence. In the last several years, she has convinced the administration to fund and expand legal aid programs from 1 under funded program to 10 funded programs in populated areas. She created and implemented child safety programs which now feature a hotline to report incidents of domestic abuse. This hotline has received more than 4,000 calls in only two years of existence. A lawyer by profession, she has mobilized an entire movement and given hope to women and children throughout her country. She is an activist and she has come to Lesley to learn how to integrate art into her country’s healing process.
Similarly, Sister Juvenal Mukamurama, former superior general of the Benebikira Sisters in Rwanda has a similar mission to develop arts programs. She and the sisters under her leadership refused to leave Rwanda despite threats from the oppressive regime during the 1994 genocide in that country which killed more than 1,100,000 100 days. This congregation has taken a leading role in the healing and reconciliation of the living victims and perpetrators of this oppression. She hopes to use drumming and storytelling as ways to bring people together in a healing and reconciliation process.
Locally, the Geese Theatre and True Theater groups have developed programs and brought them to prisons in Massachusetts to begin the healing process of the incarcerated. Both involve live improvisation and sometimes playback theatre. One group invites the inmates to participate and act out their personal stories as well as fantasy or fictionalized accounts. The other group recruits cast members from outside the prison and puts on shows inside prisons to help the healing. One example involved an actress acting out her own personal story about her lost childhood and how her mother did not protect her. The woman is a recovering substance abuser and former prostitute. In another example, a prison came into possession of over 100 suitcases and satchels. The artists from Geese Theatre worked with the inmates to paint and decorate the cases, painting their external feelings on the outside of the box and their secrets in the inside of the box. In one example, an inmate painted a story inside of a suitcase which told the tale of a violent home life where the mother had tried to leave the house on numerous occasions with the children only to return again and again.
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was the subject of another art making project which involved school children constructing simple objects to commemorate the lives of loved ones who had perished in the war. They constructed miniature figures out of natural objects such as tea bags, sticks and fabric. These artifacts were then used to make and exhibit to present them to the public. More than 3,000 such figures make up the exhibit which has toured the country. The point of the art was to facilitate healing.
The ArtsBridge project involves bringing both Israeli and Palestinian high school students together for 3 weeks to create a piece of art (visual art or film project). Students are paired together to conceive, design and create this project, which is then presented in a public exhibit. Students work closely together and through this process learn about each other’s their values, beliefs and cultural backgrounds. The goal of this program is to create a group of young people who can move beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This conference experience showed me several things. First, never underestimate the power of an idea. All these projects started out with a passionate person trying to affect change based on an idea for using the arts to engage. Second, almost all of the activists at the conference did not think of themselves as artists. They were humble, self-deprecating and shunned the attention and accolades heaped upon them.
One memorable story came out of this conference by Hugh Masekela, from South Africa, world famous musician and apartheid activist for his homeland about his grandmother. Masekela worked tirelessly to create global awareness of the horrors of apartheid through his music and was banned from entering the country for many years because of his activism. He held concerts in neighboring countries to promote peace and used his public position to call attention to the oppression.
He told of how his grandmother would carry three -10 lb. buckets of water, 3 times a day from the common well to her house. She would carry 1 bucket in each hand, 1 bucket on her head while carrying an infant (Hugh’s sibling) on her back with Hugh holding on to her skirt. She would then stop at every gate to talk with her neighbors. One speaker, Nathan Field, of IAB re-told this story as a powerful metaphor for an activist artist. First, the artist brings nourishment and life to people who need sustenance, which is represented by the water. Second, the artists carry’s the needy on his or her back, represented by the infant. Third, the artist takes his or her time to meet with and really communicate with people in the community. Last, the artist brings others along with he or she, like the small child Hugh holding on to his grandmother’s skirt.
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