Banjo Kim - An Ethics of Engagement - Week 5 Assignment

1. This quote gave me a good insight on how I should approach community-engaged arts. I do not necessarily have to side with just one side of the spectrum. Some insights that were brought to the surface by the reading was that you have to be able to respect both sides of the creation and the artistic production. “... and the promotion of a subject who ‘thinks participatively’ in respect of both the ethics of artistic production (experience) and the conditions of its reception (interpretation)” (Page 603). “It would be worth enquiring whether or not it showed significant respect, in the form of consent, for the persons involved and whether or not he respected the decisions of the subjects being filmed. We may also ask who actually benefits from Marten’s film, a question that raises precisely the meta-critical issues that the film is attempting to explore if not exploit.” (Page 601). This quote brought to my attention that art has to respect the creators and the creation. You can’t go around creating art while you are exploiting people and you are benefiting from it. If you are going to use other people in your art creation, you have to make sure they want to work with you first. You shouldn’t cross your boundaries and do whatever you want. “Rather than just applying art historical or critical paradigms to artworks that employ ethnographic rhetoric, it is perhaps more germane to note that ethnographic methodology and practice that have been judged, not unlike collaborative art practices, on issues such as contribution to our understanding of social life (substantive contribution); whether they work aesthetically (aesthetic merit); authorial self-awareness and self reflexiveness in terms of approach, observations and findings (reflexivity); the effect of the work on the viewer/reader (impact); and the credibility of its account of the so-called ‘real’ (expression of reality)” (Page 596). I liked this quote because it introduced this idea that you don’t always have to follow a set of rules because everyone and every situation is different. There should be a set of ideas that you can reference but I don't think that every art project should be judged the same.
2. Are there ethics to community engaged arts? How does one decide the ethics of engagement? Who gets to decide this? How does one find the balance between aesthetic and ethics in collaborative arts?
3. Some applications that this work might have to my understanding of an ethical approach to community-engaged arts is to create a space where people are aware of other people and their differences. Everyone has a different view on social, ethical, and political issues and you should be mindful of it. You do not have to agree with it, you just have to be aware of it and be respectful of others opinions. 
4. One project that resonated with me artist Teya Sepinukc’s Theatre of the Witness project. Some ethical considerations that were in place on this project was considering the feeling of not only the cast members but also the audience. This approach would help create a safe environment for people to be vulnerable and would also allow for everyone to feel comfortable.