SFA Takes on Social Justice

BY: MEGAN MILSTEAD

SEPT. 25, 2007

Miami University’s School of Fine Arts (SFA) is unifying its departments around the theme of social justice this year. Susan Thomas, director of integrated programs and arts management for the SFA, created the theme at the request of Interim Dean Bob Benson..

“Social justice seems to be on everybody’s radar,” Thomas said. “We haven’t reinvented anything. We’ve just reframed what we already do. We’ve also been able to spotlight each department and bring attention to each discipline.”

Social justice, as defined by the SFA, involves a process and a goal to have a society that is “equitable” where “all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure.” The school is hoping this theme will help learning environments become “creative, active and engaged.”

To do this, each SFA department designated one of its performances or exhibitions as part of the social justice series.

The art museum kicked off the series with its exhibition Tanks, Helicopters, Guns and Grenades: The Afghan War Rugs of the 1980s-2007 on Sept. 13. The war rugs were first created by local tribes and cultures of Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979. Since then, and especially post-9/11, rugs have been woven anonymously and sold. The art museum opened its exhibit with approximately 80 war rugs, which museum director Robert Wicks said could be the largest show of Afghan war rugs ever put together.

The war rugs’ relation to social justice, however, has been questioned.

“You have the production of art and the question is how are these the response to social forces (economic instability, warfare, dislocation, etc.) and how are they related to the market demand of collectors,” Wicks said.

David Dotson, who holds an MFA in sculpture from Miami and works security for the museum, agrees.

“I don’t think that the rugs themselves are really an effort to bring about change as they are a novelty to be sold,” Dotson said. “There’s a moral responsibility that artists have that gets lost in today’s culture. When art stops being about social justice it becomes about an object that can be bought or sold instead of a movement or social change.”

Dotson hopes other events related to the exhibition, like Textile Treasures: The Art of Nomadic Weaving and a documentary about the people of Afghanistan, will be more in line with the theme of social justice.

Thomas, however, believes the question as to why the rugs are actually made is itself related to social justice.

“I see that as the very reason we need to examine social justice,” Thomas said, “that there is a need to look at Afghanistan history through a lens of social justice and what would lead them to weave rugs with commercialization in mind.”

Also related to war and how it affects social justice will be the Performing Arts Series’ (PAS) is presentation of L.A. Theatre Works’ production Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers on Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Hall Auditorium. The play revolves around the Washington Post’s decision to publish papers detailing America’s presence in Vietnam in the early 1970s. Patti Libertore, director of the PAS, said the play is related to social justice because it is about the First Amendment and the public’s right to information.

“It is based on a real-life situation, but it’s at the heart of the public’s right to know versus national security,” Libertore said.

The Heistand Galleries will be exhibiting Pieces of Power: a Selection of Quilts from Gee’s Bend on Oct. 17. The quilts are made in one rural black community, isolated on three sides by the Alabama River, whose roots go back to the mid-1800s. Thomas said the social justice presented here is in a historical context.

“It’s an African-American perspective,” Thomas said. “It is about freed slaves in a rural community, but also what the hand weaving tells us about them as a people and how they have crossed over that river so to speak.”

Euripides’ play Trojan Women will be put on by the Department of Theatre Oct. 4-6 and Oct. 11-14 as its contribution to the social justice series. The play’s focus is what happens to society—and especially women—after war has been waged. It asks its audience to imagine a world without warring and violence. Liz Mullinex theater chair, said the theme of war is important to social justice.

“The reason we designated this play as part of this series is because it is a play about war and what war can do to a civilization or nation,” Mullinex said.

Thomas agrees that the play fits the theme well. “Though it’s a classic its subject matter deals with the remains of war, and what happens to its survivors is as topical as anything you’d want to do,” Thomas said.

Finally, the architecture and interior design departments are presenting a more community-based social justice message. In conjunction with Miami architecture students living in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood this semester, the department, along with the University of Cincinnati, is hosting affordable housing architect Michael Pyatok.

“[Pyatok’s message] comes out of an interesting social analysis of the nature of society,” said Tom Dutton, the Director of the Miami University Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine. “What kinds of values do we uphold or not uphold as a nation?”

Pyatok will be speaking in Cincinnati on Nov. 7.

As far as a theme for next year’s fall series goes, Thomas said she will have to wait and collect feedback on this year’s performances and exhibitions.

“I’ll probably assess after a couple more of these whether or not everyone thinks it’s valuable to them or if it’s business as usual,” Thomas said.

SFA Dean Jim Lentini feels the theme of social justice has been matched well with the SFA.

“The arts are a perfect way to get a view of how injustice plays itself out in plays, visual, art, etc.,” Lentini said. “All kinds of things reflect real-life experiences and I think social justice is something that the departments [of the SFA] can depict and get us to look at.”