Sofia Rahaniotis - An Ethics of Engagement - Week 5 Assignment

An idea that really resonates with me is the mention of “...incremental shifts from object-based to context-based practices to, more recently, artworks that primarily utilize forms of collaboration and participation…” (Downey, 593). This very simply encapsulates, for me, the way in which art-making has become so much more of a conversation rather than a presentation. Another idea that resonates with me is the discussion about the fact that with nearly all art (and particularly the examples provided in the text), “...the very fact that the social, economic, and political conditions exist whereby such events can take place” (Downey, 595). This illuminates the often taken-for-granted concept that we are capable of engaging in community art  which frequently surpasses a “...political limit point and an ethical threshold...” (Downey, 595). In other words, we possess the ability to create more and do more, but this power comes with crucial levels of ethical and aesthetic accountability which cannot be overlooked. I would like to ask the author how the elements of the ethnography rubric were determined and how the rubric, as it stands now, was created. I would also like to ask about further distinctions as well as similarities in the relationship between ‘ethnographic authority and artistic authorship’. I also wonder whether the people in the various art projects mentioned in the text were compensated or consulted for and about their roles in the makers’ artistic processes, because nothing can truly offset the cost of reliving trauma.