Cultural Creatives as Transformational Catalysts

By Profressor Sandra Waddock, Boston College Carroll School of Management 

One important aspect of transformational system change is the need to shift core narratives or what are sometimes called social imaginaries. Such narratives are important stories or cultural myths on which people rely to tell them what the world is like and how they should behave in it with respect to other people, social institutions, and even nature. The role of art and, importantly, some artists as transformation catalysts working to change problematic existing narratives towards new narratives that re-imagine how the world might be and provide hope for the future cannot be overestimated. 

That is because inspirational and even sometimes difficult artistic images and productions have significant power to change minds (and mindsets) in ways that are too often unrecognized. And mindset or worldview shifts, according to change theorist Donella Meadows, are critically important keys to bringing transformational change about because they influence attitudes and ultimately behaviors. 

Art, for example, can foster greater understanding and boost awareness of difficult and controversial situations. That’s what Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting of six-year old Ruby Nell Bridges’ walking to a newly-integrated New Orleans school surrounded by US Mar- shalls, called the Problem We All Live With, did. Similarly, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, widely considered his most influential work, graphically explored the horrors of war in ways that leave little to the imagination and, in so doing, raised consciousness about that issue. Paintings, however, are not the only influential type of art. Photography, too, can be an impactful way of getting people to see things that they don’t usually want to see, as did Nick Ut’s 1972 photo The Terror of War, depicting young children being firebombed with Napalm. Or consider the impact on social consciousness around various issues like interracial relations of television and movie productions. For example, Star Trek depicted the first interracial kiss on television, or Ellen DeGeneres’s groundbreaking revelation of the fact that she is gay on her own show Ellen. And on the inspirational side, photographs from space, including 1968’s Earthrise and 1972’s Blue Marble, helped changed peoples’ perceptions about the status of our planet in the universe.

Music, too, has fuelled civic activism in support of civil rights, including, for example, some of Woody Guthrie’s songs like This Land Is Your Land (originally a protest song, which actually talks about people going hungry and restricted access to public lands), and South Africa’s national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, which helped Blacks and supporters protest the Apartheid regime. Novels and short stories, theatrical, film, and video productions, comedy shows (like Saturday Night Live in the US), dramas, poetry, and community-based art, as well as impactful sculptures, posters, and other forms of art are powerful vehicles for tapping the imagination and creating new ways of thinking—the new social imaginaries that are needed. 

That is because art in its many manifestations taps imagination, emotion, and can foster connectedness (or highlight disconnection). It can help people see the world in new ways, enhance awareness of social and other ills, and shift understanding of humans’ place in the world. In doing that, art plays a vital role in shifting cultural understandings, potentially building empathy for unlike others, including other-than-human beings and nature itself. Powerfully deployed, art can help people rethink what it means to be human, and also empower people to build social movements that dramatically change the world (think of the protests in the US during the 1960s and protests against Apartheid in South Africa). In that respect as artist Favianna Rodrigues said in 2013: ‘Artists are central, not peripheral to social change. ...Artists don’t think like policy folks. They don’t think like organizers. And this is a good thing. They think big, visionary ideas.’ 

Art can be transformative when it helps shape new cultural values based on social imaginaries that re-envision the world in positive and constructive ways. It can foster, when used effectively, values of connectedness, dignity for all, collaboration, equity, voice, and democracy, not to mention a flourishing natural world. For those gifts and inspirations, we should be grateful to artists who inspire the types of shifts in narratives and social imaginaries that generate positive change in our world.