By Matthias Ries
Imagine it is peace. And imagine: “Art makes us curious and courageous. It changes our perception of the world. Art opens doors to realities that are otherwise hidden. As a universal language, art allows for new forms of thought, it breaks through old patterns, overcomes norms, ideologies and belief systems. Art invites us to take on new perspectives, to understand the behavior of our counterparts and the consequences of our own behavior. It gives us beauty and makes us resilient. Art gives us hope for a peaceful future, especially in times of crisis. It shows us solutions. Art helps us to be empathetic. Art thus creates ways for dialogue and peace.”
How does it work: wanting peace and then daring to make peace on your own responsibility? We want to use this blog to talk to each other about solution-focused approaches to art. We want to confront negative realities constructively with positive ideas and images. To do this, we also have to be willing to interrupt our own patterns.
One of the biggest challenges is to think less in terms of “states” and more in terms of “behaviors”. For example, how do we behave differently in a peaceful reality than we behaved before? How do we concretely imagine this positive reality? We don’t want to go “away from” a problem or a negative reality, but rather consciously move towards a solution. This solution-focused attitude can be diverse: “Aushaltend, Halt gebend, innehaltend, Einhalt gebietend, gegenhaltend, zurückhaltend, beibehaltend, enthaltend, zusammenhaltend, fernhaltend, behaltend usw.” (Enduring, supporting, pausing, stopping, holding, restraining, retaining, containing, holding together, keeping away, retaining, etc.). Thinking in terms of “behavior” and not in “states” means positively assuming that people can fundamentally behave in new and different ways, even in extreme life situations, if they find meaning in the new behavior or if other people act towards them in a way that allows them to behave differently.
Here, empathy has a crucial function as a constitutive feature of social action – namely the ability and willingness to understand other people’s perspectives and experiences in the interaction or communication process and to “feel into” them (“Einfühlung”) Empathy means wanting to see things from the other side and getting to know other people’s perspectives, even if they contradict your own. Already in the Art Nouveau period, empathy was associated with “Einfühlung” into art works – as the ability of an art-perceiving person to project the person’s personality into the artistic object and thus understand it.
Perhaps then, as art perceivers, we will also recognize the “shape of a miracle.” And in the spirit of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg’s “miracle question”, a world is being created that we absolutely want to be a part of. The following questions can provide guidance: Suppose a miracle were to happen tonight and there would be peace when you woke up tomorrow morning. How would you know that this peace is real? If you were to express this peace in an image, what would your image look like? Create it as detailed as possible. Is there perhaps already an image that you would use for this (partially)? What are you doing in this image? What are you doing that you may not have done before? What is it that you particularly appreciate about this image? Who else but you would recognize that there is peace? How might others perceive and respond to this image?
“Image” means all forms of expression that, if possible, avoid the well-known symbols such as peace symbols, doves and olive branches. What is crucial is the solution-oriented attitude that can be discovered in the respective art work. Because self-fulfilling prophecies work in both directions, as a well-known indigenous parable illustrates:
An old man was sitting around the campfire with his grandson. After they had both been silent for a while, the old man said: “You know, a lot of things will happen to you in your life, just as a lot of things happened to me. Sometimes it feels like there are two wolves fighting each other in my heart. The one wolf is the wolf of darkness, fears, mistrust and despair. It brings you bad dreams, a lot of suffering and pain. The other wolf is the wolf of joy of life, hope and love. He brings you good dreams, gives you courage and hope, he shows you the way and gives you wise advice. These two will bare their teeth, circle around each other, be at each other’s throats until one of them sinks to the ground, powerless.” Then the old man was silent again. The boy asked impatiently, “Go on, Grandfather. Which wolf will win the battle for the heart?” The old man smiled and said, “The wolf that is fed most often. That’s why live carefully and get to know both wolves well. And then choose which wolf you want to feed every day.”