The Use of Art for Social Transformation
The Arts of offerings for Mother Earth Exorcistic Ceremony
This paper is based on the online Seminar for the SIT Panama, MA Sustainable Development Low-Residency presented on April 26th, 2020.
In this paper, I would like to explore the following subjects:
• The roles of Art in Religious practices
• The roles of Art in Political spheres/arenas
• The roles of Art in Socio-economics life
• The roles of Art in Mental Health Therapy
• The roles of Art in Transforming gender-role
• The roles of Art in Environmental Conservation
• The roles of Art in Social Bonding
• The roles of Art in Tourism industry
• The roles of Art in Healing and Exorcistic
Key Words:
• Arts
• Religion
• Social change
• Social transformation
• Culture
Definitions of some important terminology items:
What’s Art?
• Art refers to any work created with imagination and skill that are beautiful or express important ideas or feelings [Merriam-Webster Dictionary]
• Art can be any art form produced by the artists (Ary)
What’s Social Change?
• Social Change is the way human interactions and relationships transform cultural and social institutions over time. [Southern New Hampshire University Press]
• Social Change can also be a process of fraught with random and unpredictable events.
What’s religion?
• Religion refers to belief in and worship of superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or Gods/Goddesses
• Religion also refers to a particular system of faith and worship
What’s Social Transformation?
• Social transformation refers to large scale changes in the social or cultural practices of societies, or in the ideology that guides social practice.
• For an example: The religion of premodern Indonesia was animist; and placed a strong stress on the relationship with family and village ancestors. Traces of these beliefs remain strong, but major transformations occurred when universal religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Confucianism provided new models of religious practice in Indonesia.
What’s culture?
• Culture is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human society, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, values, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these group (Geertz, Wikipedia)
What are the main factors of change? Change is eternal (Heraclitus c.535-475 BC)
• There are several mains factors of change:
• Source: https://pt.slideshare.net/chinarajabaratam/the-factors-influencing-for-the-social-change/10
I will cover only some of important factors of change related to our talk as follow:
The first factor of Change: Natural Factors
• A storm, earthquake, flood, drought, disease and similar natural events even today can disrupt our social system
• Natural Calamities like the Covid-19 pandemic and other natural disasters always force changes in the social conditions and life of the effected people, (like us right now).
Second factor of Change: Science and Technology
• In contemporary times, science and technology happens to be the most important factor of social change. New scientific inventions and technologies always greatly influence our social life.
• Technology brings about changes in the physical environment. E.g. from immersion learning (face-to-face) to Online learning
The third factor of Change: Cultural Factors
• The cultural factors also play a role in bringing about social change. Our social life depends upon our beliefs, ideas, values, customs, conventions, institutions, and arts as the subcultural factor.
I will talk about the roles of arts in our belief system in Bali related to Hinduism
Art and Religion in a Traditional Society
• In Bali, we believe in two different worlds sekala (visible) and niskala (invisible) worlds, the visible world inhabited by all living beings that we could see, while the invisible world occupied by the unseen spirits (good or bad). We need to be harmonious with those unseen spirits, therefore arts in Bali are more often understood as a way of ensuring the close connections between us human society with the world of invisible forces through ritual actions.
Art and Religious Belief in Bali
• In a society like Bali, art is created as an integral part of religious life and cannot be separated from its religious context. Much of this art is ephemeral—taking the form of offerings made from palm leaves, flowers and other natural materials
• One example to respond to the current coronavirus diseases (Covid-19) pandemic, we Balinese believe that the coronavirus as the demonic invisible beings which need to be transformed into divine beings through offering ceremony known as Segehan Wong-Wongan shown as the following pictures.
Art and Religious practices in Bali
• Another example to keep harmonious life with the unseen spirits through ceremony is the Odalan or temple anniversary, where the sacred dance and music are performed for rituals in addition to the intricate offerings made from palm leaves, flowers, or meat offerings symbolizing universe.
The Use of Art in supporting government’s programs
• As you know that Indonesia’s population is the fourth largest in the world after USA. Beginning with government initiatives to control population growth through family planning in the 1980s and 1990s, the government has encouraged performing artists, especially in the field of shadow puppets to incorporate dialogs into their performance advocating adoption of their social programs. The success of these efforts has meant that the arts continue to play a role in public life.
The roles of artists in promoting politicians
• Puppet-shadow is oftentimes sponsored by political candidates to gain votes from people/audience during the general election
• The puppeteer through these two specific clown characters can comment on the current socio-political issues in Bali or Indonesia or in the world like the Covid-19 pandemic
The use of Art in the economics of the export market
• Today many painters, wood-carvers, dancers, musicians and other artisans are motivated by economic concerns. The rising cost of living, especially expenses related to schooling and health, require an immediate response that artists can meet by adjusting their output to the demands of the export market or of tourism.
• The young wood-carver continue his father’s tradition in making mask both for ceremonies and commercial purposes
• Due to the commodification of the art forms, artists of an older generation, and many sensitive young people, nowadays speak of losing of taksu, divine inspiration that is said to be projected by an inspired performer or artwork.
• To gain a taksu for our success in our career, most Balinese households have a taksu shrine in their compound, where one should pray for inspiration in studies or performance.
• Balinese wood carvers are famous for their artistic skills, so that even when they are
producing arts for the export market their work often is artistic in the truest sense.
The use of Art in therapy
· Learning to play the intricate, interlocking parts of the instruments of a Balinese
gamelan music is an integrative process with positive implications for the
mental health of performers. Taking note of this, in 1994 clinical psychologist
Michael Rohrabacher initiated a music therapy program at Bangli Mental Hospital
is still considered a model for therapeutic uses of the communal process of gamelan
study and performance.
The use of Art in transforming Gender-Role
· One of the most significant roles of the arts in Bali is transforming the gender role. In the past, only men could play gamelan but since 1990s, happily inform you that Women now can play gamelan music in addition to dance
The Use of Arts for conservation and financial booster
• Abukasa is one of NGOs in Bali, founded in 2011, which has successfully transformed waste products into artistic art-forms with high economic values (personal observations 2019, 2020).
• In addition to producing beautiful art forms, the Abukasa NGO, also preserving the environment from contamination from plastic-waste and papers because they produce arts from plastic waste and papers.
The use of Arts for social bonding
· Annual events like the “parade of monsters” (ogoh-ogoh) on the night before Nyepi (a complete day of silent) is the Balinese New Year, bring out the strong sense of group solidarity typical of Bali. Many hours go into the making of these ogoh-ogoh denizen of the world of dreams and fantasy.
The use of Art for healing and exorcistic
· This “monkey dance” called kecak was created in 1930s through a collaboration of Balinese dancer I Wayan Limbak of Bedulu with the German painter and musician Walter Spies. Originally, this sacred performance was created to ward-off evil spirits that caused epidemic in the Ubud-Bedulu areas. However, this sacred performance is now commercialized for tourists as we can see in the next slide!
· The mask of Jero Gede has a colorful history that I have researched for my recent seminar presentation with Laurel Kendall of the American Museum of Natural History (London, June 2018). Balinese believe that “She” has the healing power for those who worship ”Her”. This mask has a very unique historical background before becoming the “spiritual protector and healer”.
Reflections!
• What do you think about this presentation?
• What did you learn from this?
• What are the takeaways from this?
Concluding Remarks
• Change is eternal (everything changes)
• Arts can play many important roles in our social life; socio-religious life, socio-economics, socio-political life, and preservation as well as conservation.
• Human beings are very resilient, adaptable to our new environment to survive
• Online learning is not a new thing, in the past we call it long-distance learning which I had a chance to teach in Australia
• SIT Study Abroad is bridging culture, transforming Life
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