Art for a better world

Posted on 3 December 2024 • Arts and social sciences, Society and politics

A collaboration between The Open University, Kings College London and a Philippine cartoon collective called Pitik Bulag recently resulted in an art exhibition in London’s Vauxhall showing the power of art and how it might influence society and politics.

It was staged at The Foundry Social Justice and Human Rights Centre in Oval way and was designed to get people thinking deeply about the problems politicians and leaders often grapple with.

It featured six cartoons produced by international artists and academics, addressing social challenges in a range of different societies in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa.

They were part of a programme of works organised by The Open University that aims to look at the most productive and simplest way to share research to the wider public.

Influence over elections

This exhibition follows a similar one staged in the summer at the Kirkleatham Museum in Redcar on the Yorkshire coast, and is just part of the research that looks into how elections and politics can be influenced – in this case through art but also through the media.

Dr Precious Chatterje-Doody, a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the OU, who has been instrumental in curating the exhibition said: “This initiative has the capacity to change the way we think about the global challenges of the day, and how we can work together to address them.

Resolving big social problems

“Academics can spend their entire careers working to solve big social problems but struggle to communicate their work to everyone else.”

The exhibition also included a video installation produced by the Face in the Hole art collective about the social impacts of radical political debate, and seven mixed-media images depicting social challenges from around the world.

The exhibition is as a result of a research project that is part of the OU’s Open Societal Challenges programme, which aims to tackle some of the most important societal challenges of our time through impact-driven research that will transform lives and drive societal change.

The London exhibition was part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences, which is set up to bring academic research to wider audiences, and to get them involved with it. From March-April 2025 many of the works will appear at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.

Main picture: Dr Precious Chatterje-Doody, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the OU stands with the exhibition’s visual introduction, which she created with OU academic Dr Paul-François Tremlett and Italian artist Christian Mirra

Inset picture: Artwork by Joseph Powell and Victor Ndula explains why St Lucia’s Rastafari communities were often sceptical of COVID-19 vaccinations

Picture credit: Images by Ben Meadows