Learn more about 53 Million Artists and what the project aims to do through this short great video. It gives an insight into the research side with participants from our 3 month pilot phase sharing their experiences.
As we write up the research findings and reflect on our approach, we have been formulating a methodological innovation around mindful research.
Mindfulness has been described as ‘paying attention to what you pay attention to’ (Jon Kabat-Zinn). When we consider appropriate methodologies for engaging with the everyday, such a mindful approach seems particularly helpful. Here we have in mind the challenges of Mass Observation (Highmore, 2002); a mindful approach responds to the everyday images, words, texts, ideas and so on that resonate. As such, one might be criticized for being overly subjective in assessing what is more or less important in the everyday realm; however, it could be counter-argued that we are all experts in this realm. The idea of resonance is then fitting.
Ellen Langer (2005) notes that “Unfortunately, our culture leads us to evaluate almost everything we do, even our works of art, music, literature, and every other creative product. We look at the end product and pass judgement on whether it is “creative” or not without regard for whether a mindfully engaged individual created it. We distinguish the product from the experience of creating it.”…”We can learn to choose to engage creatively in any number of ways, simply by learning how to be mindful. Mindfulness is an effortless, simple process that consists of drawing novel distinctions, that is, noticing new things.”… “Mindfulness requires, however, that we give up the fixed ways in which we’ve learned to look at the world.” (Langer 2005: 5)
There is a danger of the social scientist of everyday life undertaking their task mindlessly: “The nature of being schooled is that once we learn how to do something, too often we stop experimenting, learning, and having fun. We proceed mindlessly.” (Langer 2005: 8).
In Belfiore and Bennett’s superb book The Social Impact of the Arts (2008), they delineate eight ‘functions’ of art, within which are numerous sub-categories. One of their identified functions is that of ‘personal well-being’. It was in this chapter that I came across a quote by Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) that I thought was very relevant to 53 Million Artists as it is about time, which is a reoccurring theme emerging in the data analysis.
In Gadamer’s essay The Relevance of the Beautiful (1986: 41), he distinguishes between two “fundamental ways of experiencing time”:
In the context of our normal, pragmatic experience of time, we say that we ‘have time for something’. This time is at our disposal; it is divisible; it is the time that we have or do not have, or at least think we do not have. In its temporal structure, such time is empty and needs to be filled. Boredom is an extreme example of this empty time. When bored, we experience the featureless and repetitive flow of time as agonizing presence. In contrast to the emptiness of boredom, there is a different emptiness of frantic bustle when we never have enough time for anything and yet constantly have things to do […] These two extremes of bustle and boredom both represent time in the same way: we will fill our time with something or we have nothing to do. Either way time is not experienced in its own right, but as something that has to be ‘spent’. There is in addition, however, a totally different experience of time which I think is profoundly related to the kind of time characteristic of both the festival and the work of art. In contrast with the empty time that needs to be filled, I propose to call this ‘fulfilled’ or ‘autonomous’ time.
In the pilot phase of our research, nearly everyone felt they did not have time to do the creative challenges, despite being given permission by their organisations to dedicate work time to a creative practice. This view of time that is to be ‘spent’ exemplifies Gadamer’s view, where there is a frantic bustle of seemingly never-ending tasks to do, yet is actually ’empty time’.
Gadamer goes on to argue that the temporal dimension of the festival and the arts represent a case of ‘fulfilled time’ whereby the experience of it fulfils “every moment of its duration”. This is reminiscent of mindfulness, where the focus is not on the sense of time passing but being present in the moment. Gadamer explains, “The calculating way in which we normally manage and dispose of our time is, as it were, brought to a standstill.”
It is one of 53 Million Artists’ main tasks to challenge and ultimately change the predominant view of time into one more in line with Gadamer’s sense of ‘fulfilled time’ where being in the moment of a creative practice rids us of a sense of urgency, stress, and the need to organise and manage time to be ‘spent’ in a productive way.
As we progress on the research side of the 53 Million Artists project, varying difficult questions have arisen that require thinking through and exploring further.
Listed in no particular order:
As we work through these challenges, any comments, feedback or suggestions are very welcome!
At this stage in the research pilot phase, we are starting to collate the data for analysis. Currently, these sources include:
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A sample of transcribed feedback is given below as well as a photo of one of the evaluation activities.
“I’ve certainly found doing 53 Million Artists creative and semi-therapeutic.”
“I found for my second creative challenge, having time created for this activity, it was almost like giving you the license to not worry or think about anything else. It was work time and not your personal time, so it was like this time had been created for just this one thing. I felt even as I just left the office, I was already feeling quite relaxed. I was looking at things through a different lens. There’s something in having that space created to just do something with it and not worry about the output, or what’s produced and just going with the flow of it and seeing what comes out.”
“To have the time to focus on one particular task was very luxurious so I’ve been thinking about re-structuring my day to focus on one particular task and maybe set more clear boundaries about what I’m able to do during the day with the time that I have.”
“The thing I enjoyed most was giving myself that time, allowing myself that time.”
“What I learned is that I want to do things with other people. I really enjoyed having time alone and time to reflect and be creative but something I missed was that collective opportunity to do something with other people in the office.”
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Initial reoccurring themes are around having enough time and giving oneself/receiving permission to be creative. Many participants found it very difficult to make space for creativity in their lives, even when they were allocated work time to do so. However, others appreciated a sense of a ‘license’ or permission and used the time and enjoyed it once they got going. It seems that work cultures valorise a ‘busy’ mentality, reminiscent of Max Weber’s concept of the capitalist work ethic first introduced in his book The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism.
Also repeatedly raised and questioned were issues surrounding terminology, especially the usage of the word ‘artist’. Several participants were reluctant to associate or label themselves that term as there are connotations with privilege and exclusivity, as well as professional standards. However, as Jo raised at the party, 53 Million Artists is in many ways trying to reclaim the term artist so it is not reserved for the elites or arts institutions but open to everyone. This will be an issue to further explore and unpack as we go into the analysis and writing-up phase of the research project.
Sketchbook 