After completing the readings for this week, “The Interventionists", compose your own discussion question that critically engages your classmates. Here's what I came up with. It's over the limit of words, by a few but I did reign myself in and avoid going too terribly long.
Artists Cultivating Change: An Initiative
Being an artist is more than just being able to draw pretty pictures. I am a believer in it having a huge impact on social change. Art is necessary for the creative mind to endure beyond the arts we are taking out of our schools and cultivate a positive change for al life on earth.
Gregory Kloehn is doing a perfect example of this cultivation toward a positive change. Kloehn is an artist living in California who creates his art to represent “social irony” [1]. Currently, he is generating a movement to create tiny houses for the homeless out of discarded materials. This is indirectly related to the “Tiny House Movement” but these houses for the homeless are built in an effort to provide them a shelter while they battle poverty in America.[2] They are shelters made out of other’s trash, changing the adage “one man’s trash is another’s treasure” and using old pallets, discarded plastic, metal and wood in an effort to provide a safe place for the homeless to sleep.
He states “Stuff people just throw away on the street can give someone a viable home. Does it have merit as a solution to homelessness? As far as giving people a shelter, yeah, definitely. Is it a solution to homelessness? It’s an answer. An attempt.” [3]
Kloehn is diving into dumpsters and using what people have discarded to create the prospect of change for homeless people. The same people who have been discarded are being saved by the trash they have tossed because Kloehn is putting it to work. The rejected materials are being used to try and save rejected people.
This is giving American’s a new perspective on what can be done by anyone. An artist has created a unique idea in an effort to make change within our society.
http://www.gregorykloehn.com/gallery/
Are you of the mindset that all homeless people are degenerate drug addicts? People who are lazy, don’t want to work and just use food stamps and take welfare? Do you know what it’s like to be homeless? Do you know someone who is or was? What are your ideas on helping fight homelessness in America? Do you agree with Kloehn that this is an attempt and an answer? Why or why not? What would you be willing to do to help those less fortunate than yourself? What could you do with your art to create change? #HHP
[1] Katherine Brooks, “Artist Converts Trash Into Compact Mobile Homes For The Homeless”, Huffington Post, (May 13, 2014)
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
