Crits: From Me to We

This session encourages collective discussions for societal benefits beyond aesthetic improvements of the individual works being considered. It provides suggestions for building communal art and design studios in which all participants, students and instructors, work together to foster empathetic understanding of one another and the worldly problems we face. Interactive group critiques before, during, and after projects could be used to foster solutions by creating works that are beneficial to the planet. A rethinking of purposes of art for the 21st Century might well include ways to foster artistic cooperation instead of competition. Evaluative criteria could be based on societal concerns rather than concerns limited to the aesthetic. Attitudes of artistic individualism might be replaced with attitudes of communal interdependence. Critiques could be interpretatively focused on the implications of what we make: What is this work about (not only to the artist but to us who see it)? Who might the work benefit? Who does it disadvantage? Perhaps most importantly, during group critiques we can promote ways of talking that are kind and supportive as well as critical, toward a more civil and cooperative society.