How to Make Art When Institutional Racism is Literally Killing People

In the best of times, I sometimes struggle with why making art matters. Who am I making this for? Is art making a selfish act? I can usually swat those questions away like an annoying fly in the room. Yet during the pandemic, I’ve often struggled with the question of why make art. It feels futile on more days than I care to admit. I push through it because I have to, because if I don’t , I won’t make art and I’ll probably lose my mind. After George Floyd was brutally killed two weeks ago and that set off the international protests we’re seeing now, I suddenly really started questioning the purpose of making art. Not that I don’t think art matters because I think it matters immensely. Artists who tackle social and political issues head on can definitely be the catalysts of so much change. What I mean is how do I make art that matters when my art doesn’t focus on anything that could be construed as social, political, or even realistic in any way. I make art to take me away from reality not reflect it back to me. So how do I continue to make the art I make in the face of this monumentally, catastrophically, rotten to the core systemic racism in this country that so many are rising up in the streets, in the midst of a global pandemic, to change? I’m really struggling with the futility of making my art in this time. What do I, as a female artist with white privilege, have to offer this movement in this moment through my art? I feel like it’s the only thing I can do and yet, it’s not adding anything to the conversation. All it is is a colorful background of patterns and landscapes that look nothing like the real world. Maybe it’s escapism or maybe it’s offering a kind of fantasy world, a vision of a utopia without 400+ years of treating human beings like they’re not human. That’s all I can offer through my art. I wish I could change ideologies, wage wars that win hearts and minds, take over the streets with large murals depicting injustice, bring the emotion of this moment into a work of art that moves people to action. But I am not that kind of artist. I can only use the tools I have. Somehow I have to find a way for that to be enough.