Art – such a small word; unprepossessing, uninspiring even. If you repeat it over and over, it sounds like nothing more than stone in a rotating tyre. There is nothing in its form or sound that supplies it with the gravitas that is its just due.
Yet, like 2 words of similar form and substance, I am, it may be compared to a stellar phenomenon, a ‘white dwarf’. White dwarfs are very small and thus very hard to detect, yet they are very dense, their mass comparable to that of the Sun, while their volume is comparable to that of the Earth.
Art – it’s packed tight with myriad forms which in themselves bear a depth and breadth of meaning and emotion that totally belie its evident size.
That’s why art matters; art, the medium by which human consciousness is free to express or embody itself, is therefore predisposed to constant discovery; its vastness is without horizon and it cannot be constrained by social constructs or ideologies which include notions such as time, dualism and the universe.
In this sense the arts are one of the defining factors of an enlightened civilisation and it is in this sense also that the arts are the antidote for the world’s spiritual poisons. They may have succumbed in some hands to commodification and conspicuous consumption, but in large they remain true to their business of teaching, inspiring and opening fettered minds. Art can change hearts and minds, which is why civilisations are celebrated for their continuing cultural legacy.
Art – because it appears small and innocuous, art endures in its subversiveness and in its capacity for liberation.
– by Linda Blincko (Creative Director)
