Questions

What questions would you ask about our experience (ie, Residential College: Community Based Practices) that looks at art within an expanded context or definition of how and where art might take place (public sites, guerilla art, art & activism, artists whose work addresses social, political, environmental issues, etc.)?

Some questions from our group:

Should we as artists/students push the boundaries of the classroom
and explore what we can do out of the class, for the the community?

Could art be as simple as giving a gift to someone in need?

Should this class be about helping people, activism and making positive changes in the community, or exploring new ways of displaying art and independent gallery options, or some sort of mixture of the two?

What does it take to call a public service, art?

I think the art world today is incredibly pretentious.  A lot of
people in this world see public art/community art as something separate from what they do. Could we be trying to break down the
barrier between the two?

Do you think we need art to survive? Where are some places that you would like to see art? Where is the weirdest place you have seen art?

What other forms of art or projects could be used to help out and make a difference in a local community project much like what we did with food not bombs? What other organizations are out there that would be in need of volunteers that could be combined with the res college classes to combine the idea of art and community service?

Events like the Free Store and Food not Bombs are ways for people to
reduce the amount of waste our society creates and and help people at
the same time. How much can we realistically reduce our dependence on  governments/corporations?

What’s the difference between humanitarianism ‘as art’ and
humanitarianism performed by non-artists?

Is there an element of exploitation in the act of helping the
less-fortunate and calling it art? 

What is the role of the artist as ‘creator’ in community-based
practices?

Should all people engaging in community-based work be considered
artists ?

What is the significance of artists, as a general population, having
the unusual status of being talented and often highly educated yet
poor? Does the economic status of artists in our capitalist society
influence the movement towards ‘community-based practices’?

Could it be problematic that the term ‘community-based practices’ assumes
that other kinds of art isn’t community-based or socially conscious? Is helping others a more righteous reason for art than personal
expression?