It’s Up To Us

**Salman Sam - Master of Bidriware - and his work.**

We, as artists, as creators of shared experience, have the power, thus the responsibility, a mandate if you will, to help heal the world.

And, we need to mobilize, embrace this responsibility and keep this mandate in mind as we move through the world, doing our work.

To be clear; almost everything that any of us creates is a potential shared “intimate” experience - felt uniquely by each audience member:

150,000 people at a march or vigil
75,000 people in a stadium for ceremony or sport
5,000 in an arena
3,400 at the Oscars
1,200 at the Nederlander
200 at a dance recital
20 people encountering a street performance
2 people discovering a work of art at the same time and place; standing side-by-side with different backgrounds, seeing what they each see and responding to it in the context of their own lives.

Virtually everything we create is an Experience that can tell or be a story. Some stories are simply the feelings elicited at the Moment, others one of a panoply of possible narratives that connect and compel. Standing or seated side-by-side as the art before them does its work, the pheromones emanating from the Two or the Two-Hundred Thousand mix and communicate at a subtextual, molecular (if you will) level.

The feeling, the excitement, relief and wonder happen subliminally and concurrently and - even though the individuals may each experience something different, they experience their own at the same time as the other. The recognition incites a physical/chemical reaction and that begets the contagion that then flows between and among…

I see this as a Shared, Intimate Experience. Communicated and subtly recognized by even the most brief of sidelong glances or simultaneous goose-bumps barely perceived. Each individual recognizes the parallel experience of those surrounding; albeit each likely seeing something different as it relates to their own lives.

And this is how we, simply in doing what we do, offer opportunity for people to recognize themselves in one another; their shared similarities born of like experiences in disparate cultures.

Global Community.

I’ve mentioned before that a mere three chromosomes separate humans from apes. We are all, worldwide, related.

And I’m wondering if, keeping in mind the above-articulated universal dynamic, we can subtly infuse the sublime awareness of our relationship as people to people, irrespective of culture…

It’s there in all of us. We can mine that.

**Global Village 2016 - just before opening.**

I used to go out to Global Village in Dubai probably once every two weeks or so and just wander from pavilion to pavilion, talking to vendors…most all of whom were family to each other, in their booths selling what they make.

Kuwait, Afghanistan, Yemen, Kazakhstan…places Westerners rarely visit…India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Dubai (of course) and on and on…all welcoming, all open, all friendly and eager to converse with whatever mosaic of bits of common language we could muster.

I’d sometimes hang out and chat with an aged couple from Afghanistan whose family business was gathering opals - we’d talk about their children and their hopes for them, I’d respond to questions about America… In India, I encountered Salman Sam, a Bidriware craftsman from Hyderabad who recognized me when our eyes first locked. He told me he could feel the spirit of his grandfather in me.

Neither of us spoke the language of the other, I would go directly to him and introduce him to whomever I’d dragged to Global Village that evening, and we became and remain friends…he sharing his family and life with me via facebook and me doing the same. We still communicate.

Once, out there alone, I stepped up to the ticket booth to buy my ticket and the woman gently told me that it was Family Day and single men were not admitted. Bummed, I turned to go and as I began to step around these three men behind me; one grabbed my elbow and they said, “then you are OUR brother!” I went in.

We are all one people.

I believe that religion and culture are all accidents of where we were born. Our beliefs and experiences are byproducts of geography. Those are not differences in people; they are differences in interpretation of the world around us. These are not genetic.

Being mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers; liking and loving, these are genetic, inherent traits and qualities that are present in every human; we all share these facets of life.

So back to my point.

The planet is on fragile ground. She needs us, Mother Earth.

There is one global community that has the power to engage and enlighten - one by one and in quantity - our audiences and those with whom they subsequently, daily, come in contact.

I believe (and this is my Call to Action) that as we remain mindful of the powerful effect our work can have long past the gallery, theatre, stadium or canyon and well beyond our immediate audiences…we can sow subtle and quite powerful seeds of subliminal awareness through our art. We can change the world.

I do not know how that will look, project by project, show by show, song by song, canvas by sculpture. What I do believe is that by keeping this purpose in mind as we create, the sense of possibility will infuse itself uniquely into everything we design and build. Not overtly, but more invisibly akin to the web of tree roots and fungi that wraps and protects our planet and will do this work - support this dynamic - by osmosis rather than announcement or decree.

The power of universal thought and commitment.

Maybe let’s just add this to our toolbox, our palette, our tenets, our motivation. There is no other community with so broad and potent an opportunity to make change and foster peace than us. Maybe?

Shall we?

We, as artists, as creators of shared experience, have the power, thus the responsibility, a mandate if you will, to help heal the world.

Not Dead Yet

My Annual Share