Art Heals: Freedom

After all these weeks of living in pandemic purdah, I can’t help but think about freedom.  My first instinct is to list all that I have lost—the freedom to go where I like, when I like.  The freedom to see friends in person, to travel, to hang art on real walls, not just post on virtual ones.  I never thought of myself as a primarily free person—I felt encumbered by restrictions of time, and obligations, and opportunity.  Working where I did, and living where I do, I was aware of my greater freedom relative to the social injustice and inequality faced by people of color, of those under occupation, of those falsely accused or judged because of their ethnicity or religion, or systemic poverty.  In comparison, I was free as a bird.  But my privilege itself magnified minor impediments into obstacles to my happiness.  But now, looking at that list of loss, I have to reassess.  Nelson Mandela said, “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”  I am free to choose to do that.  My choices about how I spend my time, my funds, my actions, are freely made choices.  I can support my friends, assist my neighbors, succor the less fortunate, advocate for my causes, and freely think and write and publish my thoughts.

Have you ever noticed, that when you read or think about a word, that word seemingly pops up everywhere in your world?   It happened to me with “freedom.”

I stumbled upon a public artwork created under the auspices of a platform for artists called FOR FREEDOMS.  Founded by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, FOR FREEDOMS “is a platform for creative civic engagement, discourse and direct action.” Inspired by FDR’s Four Freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear), the non-partisan group’s exhibitions, installations and public programs “use art to encourage and deepen public explorations of freedom in the  21^st century….and inject the critical thinking that fine art requires into the political landscape….”

The particular artwork that I saw is by Jamila El Sahili, a  Beirut-born, New York- based artist whose work “aims to dissociate the Arabic language from its media-driven narrative of terrorism, fear, and oppression, and realign it with its human connection.”  In this large-scale artwork mounted on the façade of a building in Washington, DC, titled “Human Being” she posits these questions to onlookers: “What does it mean to you?  What explicit and implicit associations come to mind?  What do you feel?”

This is “Human Being” by Jamila El Sahili.  Art Heals.