Law of Two Feet
Hey everyone,
I’m Regan Smith, the new Project Assistant for Works Progress. I’ll be working here part-time helping out with communications and program-based work. In my non-Works Progress life I’m a freelance writer and the Co-Founder and Editorial Director of Paper Darts, a Minneapolis-based literary and arts magazine. If you have a pressing need to know more about me, please feel free to check out my half-finished personal website, follow me on twitter @regglandsbest, or send me an email at regan(at)worksprogress.org. Neat!
In a futile effort to catch up 1/100th of the way to the Works Progress genius, I’ve been doing a lot of reading from some of Shanai and Colin’s favorite books. Though I’m generally not one for inspirational quotes (except for obvious classics like “Live. Laugh. Love.” and “Dance like nobody’s watching.”), the text that really resonated with me and seemed most apt for this post is from Harrison Owen’s Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-Organizing World.
“It is a common experience, shared by all of us, that when we encounter situations where we are neither learning nor contributing, we leave—if not physically then mentally and emotionally. It might appear that sitting in the corner inert is the proper thing to do, but our continued (physical) presence is rarely if ever inert. We impact the conversation, and usually in a negative fashion. Our bored, frustrated demeanor spews negative energy over the entire affair.
Much better that we actually allow our feet to follow our hearts and minds and just leave.”
As someone who recently quit my secure full-time job to pursue a relatively unstable creative professional life (freelancing, yo), this quote hit home. Much more than simply being a less cheeseball way of saying “follow your dreams,” the Law of Two Feet touches on something I think very few of us take into consideration before a major life change. When trying to decide whether to quit an unfulfilling job or time-consuming creative project, most of our thinking goes into how our current situation affects us—it’s draining, stressful, dissatisfying, management sucks, etc. But rarely do we consider how our feelings about our current situation affect those we’re working with, and even more rarely do we let that factor into our decision to stay or go.
Making a major career shift is usually complicated and always really effing scary, there’s no two ways about it. But maybe if we focus more on the negative ramifications—both for ourselves and for those around us—of staying in our current situation and less on the fear of the unknown if we leave, we’d all be a little bit more inclined to take a chance and make positive changes in our lives.
I’m pumped to be contributing to Works Progress, excited to feel invigorated and inspired by my job again, and so, so proud that I finally allowed my feet to follow my heart and mind and took the plunge.
Here’s to all the other people out there who are doing the same!
-Regan
Two seemingly opposite pedagogical poles appear to be collapsing. On one side is the singularity of artistic vision expressed as a commitment to a particular material or medium. On the other is an ever-increasing pressure on students to work collaboratively through social and participatory formats, often in a public context outside the white cube. One of the most common catchall terms for the latter tendency is social practice art. Currently, there are about half a dozen college-level programs promoting its study. However, if you include the many instructors who regularly engage their students in political, interventionist, or participatory art projects, the tilt toward socially engaged art begins to look more like a full-blown pedagogical shift, at least in the United States.
After OWS: Social Practice Art, Abstraction, and the Limits of the Social by Gregory Sholette
A lot to think about in this great essay.
When I entered our field, I believed that sharing space and story in a darkened room with strangers was a community-building activity; that my role as an artist was to find stories that needed telling, make dynamic context for the telling, and tell them well. By the time I founded Sojourn Theatre in 1999, I was questioning that belief. And now, I have come to believe that my role as an artist is actually to make experiences during which strangers connect with each other. Our lives are filled with opportunities to watch and listen to narrative surrounded by people we don’t know and never will. I am interested in work that builds the possibility of connection.
Michael Rohd, co-founder of Sojourn Theatre, in an excellent article that distinguishes what he sees as three allied movements in theater that work for similar goals, but have markedly different philosophies and processes. He defines these as Community-based, Participatory, and Civic, all words that are bantered around without much critical examination these days, not just in theater, but in art and community development across the spectrum.
Perhaps it’s time we started asking, and being more precise, about what we mean when we say that our work is participatory, builds community or engages the public.
I think if we’re going to choose to work with and in public, we owe it to ourselves and to those we collaborate with to think deeply about our process, to challenge our own assumptions and beliefs, and to ask what impact we’re really making.
In the past weeks I’ve started to grow a little weary of the non-specific, uncritical approach.
I’m not saying that Works Progress has always been good at holding ourselves to this standard (we’re learning as we go) but my resolutions for 2012 including taking the time to evaluate & reflect, seeking real feedback from the communities and collaborators I work with, and being as precise as I can in what is a messy and quickly-evolving creative landscape.
The challenge for community building is this: While visions, plans and committed top leadership are important, even essential, no clear vision, nor detailed plan, nor committed group leaders have the power to bring this image of the future into existence without the continued engagement and involvement of citizens. In most instances, citizen engagement ends when the plan is in place. The implementation is put into the hands of the professionals. In concept, the master plan provides some parameters for development and the use of space, but in real life it is usually a call to let the arguing begin. For all its utility, it rarely builds interdependence or strengthens the social fabric of a place.
