Art as Healing

 In truth, I do not believe that art plays a role in healing; at least, not on community and national levels. True, art educates and provides representation/a voice to those whose histories have been overlooked by the international community. 

In fact, it was not until my partner visited the Wing Luke Museum that he learned about Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge's murderous campaign against their own people in the late 1970s. My partner learned, at a surface level of course, the conditions that innocent people had to endure, as well as the fact that over a quarter of Cambodia's population was killed during this period through the art displayed.

But art does not bring back innocent victims. Art does not truly convey the suffering that communities, especially communities of color, have faced. Art is subjective, meaning that it can tell a story from a false or misled perspective. 

Mattai, in their article "Can art bring healing?" stated that "Creating art, of any kind, is an active medication. Creative innovation leads to joy, and joy brings healing. This is where I do not agree with Mattai. Let's consider the meaning of "healed." Without looking at a dictionary, my definition of "healed" means to fully recover from injury, physical and/or mental. In cases such as these, how does one recover?

Additionally, similar to what Harlan Liu wrote in his "Reorient" article, art can often be very hard to understand without written background information. In cases such as these, subjective art can hinder making meanings of past histories, as many may not understand the meaning behind them

It is important to share the stories of all communities, and art (aside from the instances in which viewers are not given enough context on a given piece) is a highly effective method of doing so. But, in the end, nothing can bring slain family members back. Nothing can make victims forget or move past such tragedies, and that includes art. In other words, art, while playing an important role, does not heal, but educates instead.