ALFP e-magazine issue 3: Arts and Society

Socially Engaged Arts in Asia Today
Janet Pillai (Malaysia)
Founder, Arts-ED / ALFP 2006 Fellow

Social-engaged arts practice is a new kind of public art where artists work on sustained creative
practice with communities or groups of people within a social context with intention to bringabout humanistic transformation or social change. It may be initiated by practitioners from awide variety of arts: visual art, theater, media art, architecture, craft, and culinary art. Sociallyengaged arts practice in Asia today has multiple and hybrid manifestations ranging fromcollaborative performances and exhibitions with the community to public space activation, cocreation of community festivals and events, or rejuvenation of community cultural assets andpractices.
Traditionally, culture and the arts arise out of collective community practice and are entwined in
the physical, social and livelihood dimensions of society. However, several factors in Asia today
have rendered collective cultural practice and community relations untenable. Highly urbanizedenvironments, the modern work economy, forced migration, rural depopulation, and capitalistic
controls disarticulate social and cultural assemblage, contributing to a chasm among art, culture,and society. The devaluation and demise of local cultural practices, social structures and local
economies debilitate the role of community as actor, transforming them into apathetic spectators
or consumers.
Socially engaged arts practice parallels the rise of small movements in post-industrial Asia, callingfor de-growth, work-life balance, endogenous development, cultural rights, inclusion, and greenenvironment. More importantly, socially engaged arts emphasize the recovery of community as
actor through “culture and art-making processes.” It shifts the notion of art in a dialogical andreciprocal direction involving intrinsic values such as community sharing, empathy andconviviality. The practice also adopts the principles of accessibility and inclusivity, often
collaborating with community and a range of stakeholders. Although criticized by some ascompromising art, it is viewed by others as a form of intervention into cultural politics that aims
to rejuvenate cultural agency in society.
Governments in Asia are beginning to realize that democratic disengagement and urban
alienation cannot be resolved merely through technocracy and that they may lack the vocabulary
and expertise to deal with these issues at the community level. Some Asian countries such asSingapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan are already considering policy changes that allow forcollaboration with cultural agents or cultural collectives to smooth over social, livelihood orenvironmental problems or to help humanize urban spaces.
Government machinery may not be ready to respond in appropriate ways to citizen alienation,
but there is increasing evidence of government, institutions and organizations recognizing thecontribution of creative individuals, arts and culture as a catalyst to facilitate community building,place making or even participatory planning and policy-making. Socially engaged artists are© 2019 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 3: Arts and Society

creative individuals who see themselves as cultural agents. Their activities take the form ofinterventions into communities or spaces using arts or culture to engage, problem-solve or toinitiate change. Where old bureaucratic methods fail, artists are able to apply imagination,
creativity and criticality to rejuvenate and to introduce new perspectives or new use, throughcollective participation and strategic partnerships.

Young residents from social housing constructing a recycling bin (Photo source: Arts-ED)

Government-led art projects have a tendency to focus more on the instrumental value of arts andculture: for example, using public art and festivals in order to attract more stakeholders andaudiences that can lead to space activation and generate economic benefits. Independent art
projects by artists tend to be smaller-scale undertakings, focused on the intrinsic value of the arts:for example, participatory or co-creation activities that encourage social communication andcommunity-building.
In Malaysia, during the years 2008–2018 a government-led company entity called Think City
experimented with art projects to kick-start the regeneration of dilapidated urban spaces withinfour selected towns. Its philosophy is premised on the concept of the creative city and it employs
public-private partnerships and crowdsourcing as approaches to democratize the process ofideation and to widen participation. Its main grants program encourages government, business,
NGO and community partners to work in collaboration with creative professionals such aswriters, artisans, artists, architects or designers in initiatives such as space greening and activation,conservation of cultural assets, capacity building and knowledge dissemination.
Think City’s impact assessment report 1 highlighted some interesting findings: its public
community-centered grants program helped to build relationships and partnerships, but
individual programs were only impactful when linked to a strategic overall framework. Public1 Khor et al. (2017), Ed., Kamatchy Sappani, Rejuvenating the City Together, Think City, Penang.

© 2019 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 3: Arts and Society

private partnerships established on shared values were crucial to success, and initiatives andspaces that were unable to sustain community involvement were more likely to be subsumed by
the business sector.
In Malaysia, smaller initiatives led by community-engaged arts groups and individuals can befound scattered along the more urbanized west coast, among them being Rakan Mantin, Arts-EDand Buku Jalanan. These small groups tackle a wide range of place-based social issues such as
literacy, cultural sustainability and community building using literature, visual arts, street festivals
and performing arts.

Young residents from social housing making a video on trash problem (Photo source: Arts-ED)

In Japan, art projects have become the focus of municipalities, student research projects inuniversities, alternative art spaces and museums. Art projects that involve civic participation areof large and small scale. Large-scale art festivals include the Echigo-Tsumari Arts Triennale andSetouchi Triennale. Both were initiated by municipal and prefectural governments to rejuvenate
depopulated local areas and stimulate rural economies. While both festivals attracted a large
population of young volunteers and thousands of visitors, this approach led to the threat of theirturning into art-tourism events.
The majority of art projects in Japan however remain small scale (Beppu Project, Toride ArtProject, Cocoroom) and tend to focus on building social capital, engendering new channels ofcommunication and trust, connecting communities with their locality, and building inclusivecommunities. In these projects co-creation through art is used to transcend economic, politicaland social divisions that involve migrants, elderly, homeless or the disabled, creating newsolidarities.

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ALFP e-magazine issue 3: Arts and Society

In 1990–2012 the Arts Council of Japan supported a project called the Tokyo Art Research Lab
in collaboration with Tokyo University of the Arts which ran courses for young people,
supported collaborative art projects in the community and published its findings. In its report2
Sumiko Kumakura, the research leader, succinctly describes the characteristics of this newpractice in Japan as emphasis on process; site specific with reference to the social context;
sustained operations with expectation of ripple effects; and dialogical engagement with diverse
peoples and collaboration with social fields outside the arts.
Discussions on art and society in Singapore inevitably touch on the phenomenon that 80% ofSingapore residents live in the one million public housing flats owned by the government. Justin
Lee and Jui Liang Sim in the article “Arts-based Community Engagement”3 state that sociallyengaged arts in Singapore work within a landscape of state-sponsored grassroots organizations
and controlled community development.
The financial support accorded by the state for socially engaged arts in Singapore is phenomenalcompared to neighboring countries, and is a boon to grassroots artists, but it comes with a price.
Artists are more likely to receive funding when working in collaboration with social service
providers, hospitals and community organizations or with state-supported policies such asbuilding community cohesion, national identity and interracial harmony.
Despite this, socially engaged arts which politicize citizens do grow slowly and subtly in
Singapore through the work of organizations such as Dramabox, Participate in Design, Arts
Fission Company and Very Special Arts. The intermediary organization ArtsWok Collaborative inSingapore plays a much needed role, negotiating the boundaries and policies for socially engaged
artists and providing capacity building and dialogical platforms for the development of this new
public arts practice.
In many parts of Asia today socially engaged arts practice (or “applied arts,” if the term can beused rather broadly) is beginning to make an entry into different fields of practice: disastermitigation, urban revitalization, health and education, migration, heritage and environmental
conservation, conflict management and elderly care. The role and impact of socially engaged arts
practice in Asia certainly merits more documentation and investigation. Of course this also entails
developing new ways of measuring its impact on the social, emotional and physical well-being ofcommunities.
While postindustrial countries in Asia are concerned over the loss of collective agency among its
citizens, governments remain cautious about returning agency to citizens (i.e., inspiring them toimagine, define and create a future for themselves) as it requires a new politics and a newapproach to the public sphere. The process may require an inversion of the industrial model:
2 Kumakura et al. (2015), An Overview of Art Projects in Japan: A Society that Co-creates with Art, Arts Council Tokyo.
3 Lee J. and J. L. Sim (2016), “Arts-based Community Engagement in Singapore: Success Stories, Challenges,and the Way Forward,” National University of Singapore. In L.N Hersey & B. Bobick (eds.), Handbook ofResearch on the Facilitation of Civic Engagement through Community Art (pp 391–411), IGI Global, Pennsylvania, USA.
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ALFP e-magazine issue 3: Arts and Society

decentralization, providing individuals accessibility to tools and more manageable scales ofproduction, allowing public control, adopting principles of small market or sharing economies
and horizontal social structures.

The contents of this article reflect solely the opinions of the author.
© 2019 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation