art, politics, pussy riots, poetry, or: creativity as a radical act

it was in between getting links and dates together for a list of events and deadlines that i ran into the twitter message:

Pussy Riot protest verdict due - live tweet list from journalists in the court: room: https://twitter.com/#!/julianeleopold/pussy-riot … #pussyriot

i clicked. and followed the stream of notes, reflections, emotions from the crowded and hot court room in Moscow where the Pussy Riot trail was on. the 3 women were about to be sentenced after their trial, as the court found that their actions offended "significant" portion of citizens, and shook the constitutional foundations of Russia.

in between, notes like this:

"Judge says "men and women have equal rights and freedoms" under Russian constitution. Women nod and laugh."

"What could be more absurd than a freedom of expression trial and guilty verdict tweeted and broadcast live?"

“Faces of Pussy Riot 3 conveying whatever is the opposite of remorse. Judge repeating charges.”

all this made me think of art and politics and resistance, and how the group created an act of political art that with every news coverage is made public again, and of its possible consequences they had been aware of. it also made me think of an essay from this week from Beth Adams: 2 part essay on creativity, political activism, and personal choices: Toward Transformation and here: Creativity as a Radical Act

Reading the essay earlier this week had brougth back the memory of another essay i read a while ago, which was about creativity and the world in difficult times. there's a paragraph i had copied back then: it's from John Crowley, "Practicing the Arts of Peace":

"My work and the world: I was asked by somebody back at the time of the invasion of Iraq how we could all just go on writing or funny little stories, especially we fantasists, and I said that in my opinion what we were doing was practicing the arts of peace. What we want is a world in which funny fantastical stories are possible and are valued. In which there is nothing so dreadful or urgent that it causes the writing of such things to stop or be stopped. Worlds where the arts of peace can't be practiced are wounded worlds, and that's why we have to go on practicing those arts, so that our worlds don't die."

where's the line between art and politics?

i guess it's not easy to define. and it is maybe telling that in many places, especially in democracies, art is seen as something that lives in museums, with little impact on any constitutional foundations, while in systems with totalitarian tendencies, artists are under surveyance.

here's a note from an introduction to a poetry and story collection i read this week. it's from Paraguay:

"Of all the women authors represented in this anthology, it is perhaps Renee Ferrer who most directly addresses the issue of Alfredo Stroessner's 35-year dictatorship and its impact on the psyche and collective consciousness of Paraguayan artists and writers. A prolific writer of essays, novels, short stories, and poetry, Ferrer explores many themes in her work. These include identity construction vis-a-vis the protective masqueraded selves used to manage oneself in a dangerous world, the internalization of censorship, corruption (on both a governmental and personal level), women's roles in society, and the love/hate relationship between the victimizer and the victimized.

In her stories, the characters take risks in order to discover themselves and their limits. In a very revealing interview, Ferrer talked about her own need to take risks during the 80s, when General Stroessner was going to extreme lengths to control all dissident literature and reporting. As a writer, Ferrer explained that she had to deal with subject matter so controversial that its publication could mean her arrest and even disappearance. She suffered panic attacks and a general collapse from the stress, but still her determination continued to drive her to continue to question the legitimacy of artistic repression."

(more about the collection, in the blueprint book blog: First Light - An Anthology of Paraguayan Women Writers.)

it's hard to imagine living in a system like that. what would i do? would i be brave enough to walk down a street and pin notes of protest to walls, or follow a trail of words even though their mere existence - even unpublished, just the words on a paper - could mean prison?

and on the other side - how vulnerable must a totalitarian state feel to feel frightened by a song in a church, a poem on a paper. but then, there it is: the power of words.

the photo above, that's from the construction fence of the mega-construction site here that caused unexpected public opposition, and many walked up and put their note of protest there. in the end, the thing will built nevertheless due to contracts and legislation and all, but it caused a change of powers: for the first time, the regional conservative party lost the votes, and the green party is now on.

back then, in the early stages of protest, no one would have believed that.

my favourite note of protest on the fence was the classic quote from Gandhi:


"First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win."

and guess what happened to the fence, with all its notes?
it's in the musuem now. as sign of the time. true.

*
update, a day later: reflections on the pussyriot verdict by by a journalist from Latvia who lives in the US: Pussy Riot prove the only professionals in sight and by a Russian journalist: Putin's message: if you're pro Pussy Riot you're against the Orthodox church