Kids’ Art Advocacy: Rethinking the Who and How of Pursuing Justice
By Grace Jackson
Huge swaths of color painted across canvases. Roughly constructed sculptures. Illogically placed shapes. Chaotically assembled collages. There’s a reason why some of the most renowned modern art is mocked for appearing “childish.” Coloring outside of lines and deconstructing traditional assumptions of what art is can make us uncomfortable. The cynics among us Google how much the artwork is “worth” and walk away muttering, “a kid could’ve done that.” And maybe a kid could have. I believe that we often miss the beauty and genius of what a six-year-old scrawls with a magic marker in between messy bites of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I recently collaborated with kids to create postcards spotlighting their art, responding to prompts about friendship, peace, and justice. We hope the postcards will be used for advocacy and relationship building. Throughout the project, kids were delighted by the chance to create art for a bigger purpose. If you are interested in printing the artwork and cutting them out as postcards, please find a downloadable PDF here.
Kids and Advocacy
When movements are truly intergenerational, they simultaneously leverage the excitement of youth and the experience of the elderly. The sustainability of justice movements depends on a consistent influx of new ideas and bold passion—traits uniquely possessed by children. What if we invited kids as respected partners more often?
One of my friends asked her little sister if she wanted to help with the Kids Art Advocacy project. The next day I received a text: “When she learned about your project, she looked at me with astonishment and said, ‘So that means I can do something for justice?’ You should’ve seen her face.” This is why children should be invited to participate in the work of justice. Sometimes even drawing a picture is enough to spark a fire in a kid or catalyze a movement.
Art and Kids
The field of psychology has long struggled to understand how and why children are much more creative than adults. Researcher Dr. George Land found that a shocking 98% of five-year-olds he tested scored at a “genius level” of creativity, with the scores dropping dramatically throughout the longitudinal study. Those of us who spend enough time around kids are likely unsurprised by these findings. We intuitively know that children have an unmatched ability to imagine and create.
Art and Advocacy
Every successful social movement is steeped in art. From racial justice struggles in the US, to peace efforts in Palestine/Israel, the creation of art inspires and sustains our advocacy work: murals, poetry, tapestries, sculpture, theater, dance, film, and so many other expressions. As an amateur poet and potter, I have seen firsthand the ways that crafted clay and curated language can penetrate hearts in ways we often miss because of our Western over-reliance on quantitative data. When justice movements slow down enough to allow for both the unrushed creation of art and the haphazard involvement of children, beautiful things can happen.
The Who and The How
Inviting children and platforming their artwork is one example of rethinking the who and how of justice work. Who we collaborate with and how we share our stories is vitally important to what anyone does.
Who we are engaging: Honoring the intersectionality of a movement does not only require acknowledging visible demographics like race, gender, or age. We must work to respect every nuanced layer of identity, understanding the interlocking systems of oppression at play. Ask: Who is not at the table? Who is unseen?
How we are engaging: When we create or consume visual art, music, dance, theater, nature, food, spoken word, etc., we experience life in an embodied way, which strengthens our pursuit of justice. Ask: In what ways could people interact with this particular justice issue more concretely?
The who and how can blur, of course. Method and participation within justice movements often build on each other. For example, when we work alongside friends who are indigenous to the land, we likely engage with the natural world more fully. Furthermore, people from cultures different from our own can help us interact with various forms of storytelling in particular ways. Commitments to cultural diversity are critical if we hope to tell truthful stories. The same is true with kids and art—kids can help us tap into creativity in powerful ways.
It is essential to take the time to take a step back and think about who we are engaging in justice movements and how we are doing it. These elements of our work should always be changing and expanding even if our focus stays stationary. Regardless of what we advocate for—peace in Israel/Palestine, racial equity in the US, or more localized pursuits like habitat restoration or literacy rates in your neighborhood—we must slow down and ask the hard questions. Then we must act with inclusivity and imagination to expand our networks and practices. Perhaps you, like me, might be reinvigorated to work for peace after receiving a drawing of two little girls sitting underneath a rainbow.
The purpose of the Kids’ Art Advocacy project was to challenge us at Telos to expand our vision of both who we engage in our work and how we do it. I offer the same challenge to you: How can you engage children and create art in your communal or personal pursuit of justice?
But of course, children are only one demographic, and art is only one method. The better questions to ask are: Who can we invite to radically expand collaboration as we strive for peace? How can we work with revolutionary creativity in our pursuit of equity and flourishing?
I want to close with a brief list of fantastic organizations and people who make concrete these abstract questions in their own localities:
Kids’ artwork from Gaza – a program facilitated by Dar al-Kalima University, where our friend Rev Mitri Raheb teaches
Brandan “BMIKE” Odums – an activist and muralist based in New Orleans
ArtLords – an organization which empowers Afghan artists to create visual art and advocate for freedom, peace, and democracy
