Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Social work community-level efforts can benefit from art-based approaches. Art can facilitate creative engagement with social issues and stimulate new insights and knowledge of participatory processes. This is meaningful for environmental justice because it gives people a sense of being supported in their efforts to make changes. This qualitative study explores the motivations, expectations of impact, and experiences of socially engaged artists. Gaining a deeper understanding of the factors that motivate and support socially engaged artists in promoting social change through their art is helpful for developing artivism logic models for social work practice. Methods: This study utilized a qualitative phenomenological research design to explore the experiences of socially engaged artists. Participants were selected using snowball sampling and included 10 socially engaged artists. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis in ATLAS.ti. The findings reveal that socially engaged artists have a strong sense of place and belonging to the communities they work with. Artists described feeling a sense of connection to something larger than themselves and identified a range of impacts resulting from their work, including raising awareness of social issues including environmental justice, creating community engagement and dialogue, and effecting positive change. The findings of this study suggest that socially engaged artists can provide insights into the potential outcomes and impact of artivism projects focused on environmental justice. This has implications for social workers collaborating with socially engaged artists and begins to inform the development of logic models for artivism projects.