A Double Image Within Social Art: White saviourism & the role of artists in decolonising social art.
By
Kwinnie Lê
Published in September 2021 as part of the extended digital edition of Social Works? Open journal…
“‘She’s lying. Those children are all lying.’ She is talking about one of the children who told her that her mom hit her. The other teachers took it somewhat seriously by discussing the difference between hitting and ‘a little slap’. What a western term, I thought. But she even went ahead and said with a laugh, ‘yes, just like in South Park. All these children who lie about getting hit so that they can get attention’.”
Shocked, I sat there at the table with a group of white artists who work with children from the surrounding neighbourhood. My mentioning of race? These children all came from families with a ‘non-Western’ migration background. Children from the neighbourhood who speak several languages at home and who float in between multiple cultures. Third culture kids. It is difficult to understand these children if the artist does not share a familiar background and this shows. On social media? Photos and videos of her enriching the lives of the ‘poor immigrant children’ as the artist.
The instance described is of a collective of artists who work with children in a neighbourhood in Rotterdam South (NL), a place that is often negatively stereotyped as a problem area as well as one mainly inhabited by communities of colour. While claiming to create non-didactic learning environments, behind the scenes it turns out to be performative. The first image that comes to mind is the ‘white saviour’. The longer I interact with so-called social art, the more often I start to wonder whether its aims are sincere or whether it is an act of self-serving. One could say that it doesn't matter whether it's genuine or not. After all, if there's help, who cares if it's not genuine? Intent and outcome are weighed against each other.
While this mindset is meant to be harmless and positive, it can actually work negatively in the long run. I will first explain the possible repercussions of white saviourism as a form of neo-imperialism as well as how this ultimately affects BIPOC artists. From here on, I argue for the decolonial approach as a necessary means for a social art praxis. Needless to say, funding policies and institutional frameworks play a significant role in this as well. However, the discussion of decolonisation within the arts is mostly directed towards institutional frameworks, overlooking the responsibility of individual artists. For this reason, I will narrow my focus on the role of the artist in decolonisation. Therefore, I will narrow my focus on the role of the artist.
Social art as a form of neo-imperialism
The language of ‘socially engaged’ art and ‘projects working with marginalized groups’, etc. is increasingly used in the policies of cultural institutions and art projects. It is striking when it concerns communities of colour and when the appointed artist is a white Western European artist. You may have heard of the white Saviour before: white, middle-class and educated individuals who go to the ‘Global South’ to help the people in need. [1] Of course, this is known because of the pictures of themselves posing with the people in need that are posted on social media. While this conception also brings in geographical relations as well as epistemic questions between ‘the West’ and ‘the Global South’, it can also be found within ‘the West’ itself. Film analysis would call this the ‘white saviour trope’ but the art world has its own version with strikingly similar parallels that can be found in certain cases of social art practices. I am speaking specifically of when a white western European artist is remunerated for working with communities of colour in the name of social art, whether one calls it community art or socially engaged art.
The problems that arise sets up a form that have hints of neo-imperialism. Firstly, social art claims to bring art to people who have little or no contact with art, suggesting that immigrants, refugees, disadvantaged children do not know art and require an artist from outside of the community to teach them culture. However this conception relies on a definition of art that is Western and European. These communities may or may not come into contact with the art that can be found in museums, but all cultures have a wealth of art that exists at home. This supposition is both didactic and neo-imperialist in its rudimentary definition, and acts as another way to ‘civilize’ people of colour–not coincidentally, the backbone of the justification of colonial history.
One could wonder in what way these communities are supposed to benefit from social art. In fact, social projects can adversely affect socio-economic conditions that are structurally placed within these communities. If there are problems, the artist is invited and remunerated to come ‘help’ these communities. This privileges the artist from a socio-economic aspect and keeps the aid performative if coming in with a didactic approach. In reality, the aid would be of an escapist nature and overlooks the struggles and the realities within the community that is being exploited by the individual artist.
Secondly, the communities affected are no longer individuals with a complex background and character, but become those who should be helped by the artist. This transcends imperialism in its rudimentary terms, dehumanizing and othering people of colour, and perpetuating negative stereotypes of BIPOC communities as anonymous people in need of help: groups that cannot do without the white saviour. The insertion of social media within art practice has added a new dimension to social art practice as it has now also become highly visible, more than ever before. The increased use of social media as a platform to showcase one’s art practice extends or even increases the individualist nature of an artist practice, in which it becomes the greatest tool for a social art practice that is performative and escapist. The imagery perpetuates the stereotype where people of colour are portrayed in stark contrast between the white individual artist, in which the communities become decor pieces for the individual artist. It creates a hierarchy where the art or said goal of social art cannot come from within the community or come from the community’s values.
An objection might be to say that BIPOC artists can also participate in a form of saviourism that is not so different from white saviourism. White saviourism entails the othering of people of colour by white western European people. To have a deeper understanding, we have to look into decolonial discourse. Here we can find the Self-Other relation that can be found in the white saviour complex. Following Frantz Fanon, he argues that the conception of an altruistic self is unique to ‘the white man’ while the person of colour, specifically Black people, serves as the inverted other. In this relation, the white man’s subjectivity is recognised and the person of colour confirms this subjectivity as the other. [2] In this inverted other, the person of colour is victimised, de-rationalised and contrasted to the heroism of the white saviour who seeks to promote progress and development. While “othering” can also be done based on something different than race, the othering based on race cannot be countered as the subject’s mere presence, a person’s race, cannot be hidden or changed. Following Fanon, it is a ruling ideology that also produces a psychological inferiority. It is a relation that is rooted in colonial systems where the native suffers from the inferiority complex in relation to the colonizer. Therefore, BIPOC artist cannot subjectivise communities of colour as the ‘other’, whether it is the reproduction of this imagery or the Self-Other relation, as it does not reproduce this ruling ideology that is based on race. However, there has to be a conscious differentiation among BIPOC artists which I will briefly explain later on.
Decolonising the social art praxis
There is a notion that social art can help within the decolonisation of art. While social art is broad in its definition—and perhaps part of the problem is the broadness of its definition—terms such as ‘community’ and ‘socially engaged’ suggest that social art can be a method of decolonization. The idea that social art can exists outside of institutions also supposes this idea that it can help in decolonizing institutional frameworks. However, the equation of social art as a method for the decolonisation of the arts lacks the notion of coloniality as a lived reality that is intertwined in every aspect of our lives as well and focusses, again, on institutional frameworks. Tuhiwai-Smith describes how decolonisation can be practiced through various ways of cultural revitalisation, healing, transformation and mobilisation. [3] This includes engaging in forms of cultural reclamation, fostering communal connection, reframing, (re)presentation, creation and more.
A significant component of the conception of social art that plays a part in this lived reality, lies in the individualist and collectivist values within a culture. ‘Non-Western’ cultures have collectivist values in which community and family are upheld above individual needs. To sketch an example, one could think of the existence of retirement homes. Traveling outside of ‘the West’, one can find little to no existence of such homes as it’s considered unfathomable to not take care of your own elder in your own home. These collective values differ per culture but strong similarities can be found among BIPOC communities. This example of elderly homes shows how collective values do not consider helping or taking care of one another as a heroic or messianic act. Rather, it is what one is expected to do. However, a culture with individualist values does not consider such acts as a given. To do such a thing, one is going ‘out of their way’, making it the act of an altruistic self. ‘The West’ has strong individualistic values in which art, taken in a traditional sense, has been considered the pinnacle of individualist expression. Yet, the great conundrum here, it is the artist who comes in with Western individualist values to aid these groups through a supposed communality in their art. It’s an attempt in building a praxis of collectivism while building it on the values of individualism. Ultimately, this will lead us to white saviourism within social art. This is not to say that a collectivism is better nor that individualism is bad, both have its advantages and disadvantages. It’s to exemplify the importance of actively building a social art praxis that is not solely based on Western values and frameworks.
Dismantling white saviourism, and therefore the interlocking systems of oppression, within social art cannot go without bringing in decolonial art practices and inserting decolonisation within the social art practice, instead of the other way around. By bringing in decolonial art practices also means bringing in and remunerating more BIPOC artists who have such a practice. Especially BIPOC artists who have a familiar understanding of the communities working with. BIPOC is a broad definition in which each community comes with a different culture, values and understandings. For example, just because one is a BIPOC artist with a decolonial art practice, this does not mean one understands the refugee experience. I am also not claiming that a white western European artist cannot work with communities of colour as I do not wish to gatekeep a conception of social art. Rather, I argue for a shift in approach with a focus on decoloniality within social art. Collective values are a significant part of the quest to decoloniality. If social art is considered from a privileged position, a decolonial approach has to be actively and consciously constructed and applied.
Never offer to teach a fish to swim
Social art has its pitfalls. Perhaps, we can expand the concept of social art beyond its Western normative position. Marginalized groups are more than marginalized. We must recognize the problems but also the richness in culture and knowledge that communities of colour also carry. This means decoloniality in all its forms as the way onward and a form of social art in that is based on exchange, rather than one that is didactic. Only then can we form social art in which we can genuinely care for each other.
ENDNOTES
[1] ‘West’, ‘Global South’ and ‘non-West’ bring forth epistemic questions around Eurocentricism as a system of knowledge and the othering of ‘non-West’. Therefore, they are marked with quotation marks.
[2] Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. (London: Pluto Press), 86.
[3] Tuhiwai-Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. (Zed Books), 121.
