Response to Performing Empathy: What the Arts Can Offer Conflict Resolution

What tools does the text offer to our work with diverse communities and collaborators? 

This text attempts to break down the term empathy and extend it beyond the notion that empathy means simply to "feel for another." Ultimately, empathy is about recognizing our own biases in order to better understand others. I suppose I would've liked for this to have been ever further expanded upon, especially today when I'm struggling to find empathy for my own family amidst personal crises and democratic downfall in America. On another note, it was fascinating to learn about Barthes' terminology, "twice fascinated," in which one remains actively open to function as both a participant and witness. It seems that willingness to remain open is crucial to the role of an artist as mediator as opposed to the opposite end of the spectrum, in which bias has the capacity to completely shut down engagement. This in itself has been on my mind more often lately - I try to understand my own biases on a daily basis and I actively question myself, both in writing and within my thoughts. I think it's a good practice to maintain & is indeed a tool to be used (although I can't preach on this & I still have a longgg way to go with my own family).

Further on, I really appreciate this question, which was posed: "How might our field expand if we employed tools from arts-based practices rich in perceptual, sensorial and cognitive strategies, which can guide mediators to be "twice fascinated?" Very often and importantly, we question the ethics of a socially engaged art and how this may or may not affect participants, but too often, we forget to ask how these works/experiences will impact the artist/mediator. It was kind of refreshing to hear this question posed as I think a healthy mindset and to be "twice fascinated" would seem to be a crucial role for the artist, not limited to the experience of the participant. I hate to be knit picky, but I would say that while I appreciated this question, on the flip side I would beware of the wording in this question. In a subtle way and although I don't think the author(s) intended this, there is an implication that art can be used as a tool and while that can be true, I would argue that setting such expectations may not be to the best outcome. The arts are ambiguous and I'm not sure it can be so easily categorized. 

On a final note, the author pose one last question: What is one risk you could take in your practice to creatively cultivate awareness and deepen empathy?

I was slightly confused by this question and couldn't understand the implication that one must take a risk in their practice in order to achieve the very things they outline (cultivate awareness and deepen empathy). I feel like the biggest risks are more in the financial realm of things. Working as an artist-mediator isn't exactly the most profitable route and often such artists are dependent on grant funding rather than through the sales and circulation of art objects, but again, I don't even feel that in my this response I'm addressing the question completely.