TY - JOUR
T1 - Giving Voice to the Impact of Environmental-Associated Trauma in Indigenous People Through Social Practice Art
AU - Collier, Ann Futterman
AU - Tidikis, Viktoria
AU - Blackhorse, Davona
AU - Skabelund, Shawn
AU - Tannous, John
AU - Benally, Malcolm
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts (16-4200-7039).
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land was a community engaged regional art exhibition that began as a mixed-method research project. The original purpose was to give voice to the stories of indigenous people living in uranium-contaminated regions of the Navajo Nation. It quickly expanded into a social practice art project, allowing for collaboration between individuals, artists, community members, and several different institutions. Participating artists attended a 4-day informational and interactive workshop about the uranium mining legacy, so that they fully understood contamination issues; the goal was for them to create art from an informed place. The investigators examined the psychological impact of the workshop and the exhibition on the artists as well as the community at large. We found that the greater the emotional impact on the artist, the greater their absorption while making the art and the greater their artwork creativity, as rated by objective evaluators. Community attendees reported increased knowledge about the issue, as well as feeling inspired to take action. Through engaging a community advisory council and artists and patrons on an intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, and compassionate level, we documented how this social practice art exhibition had an impact on our community.
AB - Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land was a community engaged regional art exhibition that began as a mixed-method research project. The original purpose was to give voice to the stories of indigenous people living in uranium-contaminated regions of the Navajo Nation. It quickly expanded into a social practice art project, allowing for collaboration between individuals, artists, community members, and several different institutions. Participating artists attended a 4-day informational and interactive workshop about the uranium mining legacy, so that they fully understood contamination issues; the goal was for them to create art from an informed place. The investigators examined the psychological impact of the workshop and the exhibition on the artists as well as the community at large. We found that the greater the emotional impact on the artist, the greater their absorption while making the art and the greater their artwork creativity, as rated by objective evaluators. Community attendees reported increased knowledge about the issue, as well as feeling inspired to take action. Through engaging a community advisory council and artists and patrons on an intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, and compassionate level, we documented how this social practice art exhibition had an impact on our community.
KW - Native American
KW - community engagement
KW - creativity
KW - environmental toxins
KW - hope
KW - meaning
KW - social practice art
KW - trauma
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U2 - 10.1177/0022167820902954
DO - 10.1177/0022167820902954
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85079165604
JO - Journal of Humanistic Psychology
JF - Journal of Humanistic Psychology
SN - 0022-1678
ER -