Universities are becoming an increasingly important space for culture and creativity, but the results need to be tested in the world outside.
Earlier this month I attended a conference in Surabaya called Crossways of Knowledge. It was the first outing of the Knowledge House for Craft. We’d been in development for the past four years but were yet to manifest ourselves in real life beyond the small screen. Our roundtable and exhibition gelled with the overall event vibe of thinking beyond Western models.
The program was a remarkable combination of academic conference and cultural festival. It not only included papers from 1500 delegates, it also featured performances, a craft bazaar and marketplace of impressive social projects. One particular event caught my attention: Sea Legends in Hong Kong’s Waters: From Mermaids to Pirates.
Sounds fanciful, I know. But it relates quite closely to the first issue of next year’s series Storylines, which focuses on water spirits. This issue will reflect the cultural legacy of myths and folktales that help us understand our dependence on the various water entities.
The performance was impressive. It combined sinuous dance with a captivating video and an intriguing narration. The narrator told her personal story of her family of Chinese heritage that had settled in Saigon, but fled to Hong Kong, from which she moved to the Netherlands to study at Leiden University. The story reflected multiple layers of displacement that prompted the need to find a thread to connect the various journeys.
What I found particularly interesting was the reference to a relatively obscure folk tale of Lo Ting, a mermaid-like creature living on one of Hong Kong’s many islands. We often think of traditional folk tales as reinforcing stereotypes, such as the passive femininity of Cinderella. But Evelyn Wan showed how they could be creatively repurposed to articulate new forms of identity.
But at the same time, it made me wonder about the institutional framework for such a project. On her website, Evelyn Wan describes herself as “Assistant Professor in Media, Arts, and Society at the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands”. Her institutional position supports this personal project. Apart from the worthiness of the performance itself, the role of the state troubles our presumption of authenticity.
We presume that culture springs organically from experience in the “real world”, which scholars then study in universities. If culture begins to depend on the state, it is in danger of becoming tied to its institutional interests.
This issue has come to the fore recently with the breaking performance of Raygun at the Paris Olympics. The unique and seemingly awkward moves were related to her doctorate in culture studies. Her performance was rejected by judges who gave it a total of zero points. Some, of course, saw this as a good thing. This expansion of academia into popular domains (like Taylor Swift Studies) poses the danger of theory overwhelming practice.
Bear with me while I tread a dangerous path (and feel free to leave a comment if you diverge). Academia, along with our cultural institutions, has adopted our liberal consensus to support marginal identities. This involves a focus on those who are different from the norm, whether it be by ethnicity, gender and now neurology. (While this might seem radical, it does reflect a Judeo-Christian legacy of sympathy for the victim, as argued by Tom Holland in Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World).
While this is something we largely celebrate, the negative side effect is sometimes what’s termed a “circulation of elites”. Rather than a new egalitarian society, a revolution can often simply place a new class at the top of the old hierarchy. This is most evident today in the practice cancellation, where a group can exercise its power by ostracising a contrary view.
So, how do you promote liberal values while avoiding old hierarchies? It’s a complex challenge. One useful measure is broadly termed “checks and balances”, as articulated by Ashley Hodgson in her wonderful YouTube series, The New Enlightenment. Such safeguards are normally gained by separation of powers, such as executive and legislative government, or freedom of the press.
The check and balance that interests me particularly is the craft product. This is an object that can carry our liberal values but is also able to circulate outside the academy. One important pathway is a product that meets our everyday needs, not just practical functions like eating and clothing, but adorning our bodies and spaces.
Universities play a critical role as laboratories for change. But the ivory tower needs a bridge to help gauge the way new concepts contribute to the whole. Without that, we have a race to the margins, as we each seek to find a new exception to the norm.
This may seem curmudgeonly. I certainly don’t want to join the mockery of “political correctness” found in the right. But it’s important to harness the generative capacity of everyday experience. Take the work of Vipoo Srivilasa, for instance. His creative projects strongly reflect the liberal focus on social justice, such as The Marriage of Sang Thong which celebrated same-sex marriage. But it is presented with a generosity that contributes to life.
Degrees in Cultural Studies do not replace culture itself. We need more culture-makers.
To catch a flower: Love triumphs in the marriage of Sang Thong
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Comments
Thank you Kevin for a very timely observation. In times of crisis in art/craft education we need to re evaluate. In the 1950’s Ben Shahan wrote a series of essays published as “The Shape of Content.” Universities were taking on art education which he thought could be a good move . “At the same time there is always the possibility that art may be entirely stifled by the university atmosphere, that the creative impulse may be wholly obliterated by the pr-eminense of criticism and scholarship.” He also wrote a chapter on “The education of an Artist” which I reckon is terrific. I am not anti academic, but I am anti elitist, and I find the prevailing societal attitude that work of the mind is always superior to work of the hand ridiculous. My copy of Setter’s book The Craftsman” is well thumbed and I’m referring to myself as a craftsman more often than as an artist.
Thanks for the comment, Peter. Much of the good critical thinking is occurring outside the university and by makers themselves. What happens inside universities is too often more about institutional politics than the creative field itself. We need to strengthen the field.