Making Worlds: Art, Words and Worlds

Abstract

Introduction'The world' seems, often, to be more a proposition than a place, more a theory than a thing-in-itself. The fluidity of its meanings means that dominant discourse tends to focus on conceptual, economic and political, rather than on lived experience, phenomenological encounters, or multiple ways of being in what each person might consider 'the world'. How we might access plural experience of world is a point of considerable scholarly debate as philosopher Nelson Goodman notes, writing that 'universes of worlds as well as worlds themselves may be built in many ways'.1 We start from Goodman's constructivist premise, and focus on art as a domain for making of worlds. Art is perhaps under-determined compared with linguistic and political mediums, but it may have equally profound effects on how lived worlds emerge and are understood. In this paper we take up twin concepts of plurality and practice to explore how art might enable an exploration of connectivities and differences, and how it might form a venue for making of worlds that are not fully in accord with contemporary logics and 'truths'. We do this through a discussion of a recent exhibition that was framed around theme of 'making worlds', and mounted in a small regional city in New Zealand, Whanganui. It included work of seven artists2 whose common point of connection is that town-one of oldest colonial towns in New Zealand, and a fountainhead for indigenous rights protests within Aotearoa. The artists' connection with this liminal town, and their separate experiences and identifications, serve to highlight ways in which visual art can afford place to situate oneself: whether a geographical or an ontological place. From such places they can produce and present their works to un-make and remake known, authorised world-to allow new conceptual frameworks and, possibly, new grounds for human connectivity.Art and WorldArt is not a copy of real world. One of damn things is enough'3The relationship between art and world is something discussed frequently by artists and art critics. At conferences, in artist talks and in critical writings it is not uncommon to come across discussion about whether art reflects world, represents it, replicates it or re-makes it. We aimed to add to this discussion but focus on making of world. To do this, we mounted an exhibition titled 'Making Worlds' (27 June-23 July 2011). We invited a group of artists4 to show works that in some way reflect their sense of art and world; and interviewed them to tease out what they see as connection between art and world.Our starting point for this exercise was philosopher Nelson Goodman, who several decades ago published influential Ways of Worldmaking (1978), a text that lays foundation for so much thinking about world-making that has happened since. Goodman analyses relationship between domain of art and social understandings of 'the world'. Drawing on writing of earlier philosophers, including Ernst Cassirer and William James, he engages questions of 'the multiplicity of worlds, speciousness of the given, creative power of understanding, variety and formative function of symbols' in order to ask following questions: 'What are worlds made of? How are they made? What role do symbols play in making? And how is world-making related to knowing?'5 These are questions that engage us also: in particular, possible relationship between world-making and knowing; and creative power of understanding as each applies to art and to artists. In this paper we discuss outcome of process-of conceiving and mounting exhibition, interviewing artists, and undertaking archival and observational research into issue of whether, or how, particular artists build worlds, imagine worlds, and find ways to live in and across those worlds. …