Art as Mediation

In this new day and age, limited communication by cultures has been emphasized by the fact that mediators and buffers like religion have lost their influence. Today, the United Nations and activists worldwide have replaced a meeting of priests to talk about the state of world affairs.
Perhaps the most prominent of the mediators has gone overlooked, however. Art, in its most basic form is the sharing of creative works by various people. At times these works are created for personal leisure, but most of the time to impart on an audience an interpretation of the world around them. In this expression political regimes can be questioned, terrorists can be defeated, and all people can exist as equals. Expressing these controversial topics in art reminds the audience that certain problems exist in the world, but also allows the audience to interpret the controversy at their own discretion. Dialogue may or may not be exchanged regarding the piece on display, but the audience at the very least, leaves thinking about the topic that the artist has presented. Currently, artist use their memory of war as their visual platform and mediation to reflect on politics and power.
This unspoken dialogue is the mediation that art now serves in our world. Although a panel may never be formed to discuss the genocide that is Darfur, certainly an art show on behalf of the cause will encourage people to identify it as a severe problem when they leave. Beral Madra, a curator from Istanbul, Turkey talked about this phenomenon in depth in a lecture to an American University audience on April 19, 2007. Madra attests that the new cultural climate of the 21st century has allowed artists to be the new intermediaries between world peace and world conflict. A shift from religious absolutism to individualism has allowed many artists the freedom and space to challenge conflict with the expectation that understanding might result and that people might be challenged to do something on their own to change the way of the world.
This freedom to express oneself is not always as easy as it seems. Journalists in the Middle East for instance, face persecution and risk their lives each time they write a piece about the state of their government’s affairs. Artists all around the world have had to devise elaborate schemes to get their art to the world. Today, many artists use symbols and varied imagery to portray their point of view. In design for instance, artists can interchange between image and sound to create a work that can affect many. The use of moving images has allowed for many artists to question the world around them and give the rest of the world a notice about the current state of affairs.
An example of this is in the documented footage of the use of children in the Civil Rights Movement. Without these horrendous images, perhaps this blatant problem in American culture and politics might have gone unnoticed. This footage, however, gave racism a face and brought it right into the homes of all Americans. With this, Americans had to question themselves on the political spectrum of this issue and soon mediation was able to result when many realized that what was institutionalized at the moment should not have been the case. Only after these images were shown were artists able to capitalize on shock value and change the way the world around them considered this specific issue.
In the end, artists will probably always be shunned for the causes they choose to interpret in their art. The challenge is to devise new and innovative ways to speak the truth regardless of whom around you believes otherwise. It is important to remember that the creative force behind a great work is the artist himself; without the artist, something that may need to be said could never be said and the crucial role of mediation can never be revealed.