Thursday, November 20, 2008

Dominant culture in the arts

RVCBard asks:

How and in what way do you see the arts (whatever your specialty) as being dominated by a particularly White and masculine aesthetic? To what extent is the current artistic climate able to enter meaningful discourse with divergent works? How should artists and audiences go about doing that? What can we do to expand our artistic paradigms (and vocabulary) to incorporate different methods of artistic expression?
My specialty is a performance art in which I try to shape my life to illustrate visions I see in the writings of Baha'u'llah. I do see what I would call a dominance of white male interests among Baha'is. I've seen a lot of discussion of that, and what to do about it, among Baha'is. One idea I've been practicing and promoting is to spend time with people from other cultures, immersed in their cultures, doing things that interest them.

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