This quote is from an essay I read today. It better articulates the importance of the role of art in relation to faith and justice than anything else I’ve read so far.

‘What happens is that we the viewers assume the role of the witnesses. … We are drawn into a confrontation and now have the possibility for transformation. There is a death to our old understandings and the emergence of a new awareness. Like the parables of Jesus Christ we are shocked into new understanding. Visual art as parable refers to the way it promotes imaginative living, the kind of living which is presupposed by a justice-oriented spirituality. Such a spirituality creates the proper context for the transformation of the world. This is the way that art does justice.’

James Empereur ‘Art and Social Justice’

I highly recommend this essay if you can find it. It appears in the book Art as Religious Studies edited by Doug Adams and Diane Apostolos-Cappadona.

Filed under: life by Jonathan