Charmaine is an artist who lost interest in producing art objects for exhibitions and buyers. Instead she wanted to help others appreciate and create art. After years of academic studies, and while serving as a Head of Department for Art in state schools, she started a doctoral research. Working with people using art was enlightening and in turn, she also experienced transformation through art. Charmaine is a philosophy student in Malta.
Transformation through Art
Dr Charmaine Zammit, Malta
Often friends ask me, ‘When is your next exhibition?’ ‘How come you don’t sell your art?’ These questions led me to reflect on art and its relevance. Although I could never stop creating art, I no longer felt pressured to produce objects – artworks that satisfied the stereotypical role of an artist.
Pay back time
Gradually, I started moving away from creating art for a consumerist society. Instead, it was time to pay back, channelling creativity to be of service to others. In 2014, after years of academic studies, I embarked on a doctoral research journey. My aim was to serve young adults and their holistic development.
PhD research on Transformation through Art
Part of the study involved setting up projects within three different communities. The first group were residents at a drug rehabilitation centre. The second were university students pursuing a Bachelor in Art Education degree (B.Ed.) and thus had an art background. The third project was held with inmates at a correctional facility.
I considered the participants as research partners who shaped the study by exchanging ideas, observations and experiences while interacting with art. The study was mainly focused on engaging them with the art collection at MUŻA – Malta’s national art museum. During the process, they created and reflected on their discoveries about themselves, life and art.
While viewing the collection, the participants were encouraged to question, confirm or reject opinions about art, life, social issues or even themselves. By providing them with tasks such as choosing a theme and developing it with reference to relevant artworks, they could immerse themselves in the experience, moving beyond what they considered to be ‘expected’ practices of observing art.
The following examples, extracted from the results of each project, indicate the participants’ meaning-making which mostly reflect human needs.
Drug Rehab group in Transformation through Art
A participant from this project chose the theme of ‘Family’. For him, the combination of his chosen two artworks portrayed suffering and pain (Fig 1).
He presented the development of his theme by explaining what they meant to him as follows:
“My family is my life…and I know I ruined it. My family suffers because of me. The painting ‘Christ on the Cross’ and the sculpture of ‘Rythmii Vitae’ inspired my work, because in the first I see the pain I put my family through…they suffer the cross because of me… and in the second, I see the strength of love between a man and a woman, no matter what happens…Then I developed it as a drawing using the symbol of peace…the peace when a family provides love…this is what I want to find when I am out of here…I will not ruin my family this time”.
University art students group in Transformation through Art
I expected the second group, the art students, to be familiar with the art collection, but this was not so. Just like the other two communities, they faced personal challenges, particularly the constant deadlines and exams. They told me that the project sessions allowed time to slow down, reflect on their lives and find meaning.
Correctional Facility group in Transformation through Art
This group of participants was quite challenging! I had to dress very modestly on the visits to the male prison. I did my best to look unattractive, wearing plain long dresses, no make up, and hair tied into a bun. As usual with the Maltese climate in August, it was extremely hot, humid and uncomfortable.
Just a few days before starting the programme, I heard that some of these participants were classed as ‘dangerous’…rapists, murderers, thieves. Intrinsically knowing that I will be of service and pressured with the project deadlines, I had to face whatever came along with a ‘come what may’ attitude.
But I found that the fears gradually turned into sympathy and empathy for what the participants had been through in their life. The art activities encouraged them to share narratives of their harsh experiences. At times I stared at the useless ceiling fan to avoid tears.
Transformation through Art
In dealing with his chosen theme, one participant from this group found inspiration in two artworks. Art recalled his experience of death at sea while witnessing his migrant friends drowning. He related to ‘Curves’ due to the bones used in the sculpture. For him, bones evoked death. Whereas the image of the sea in the ‘Grand Harbour’ reminded him of the Maltese seas in which he had witnessed death. Eventually, he developed the theme in text and a drawing, dealing directly with his tragic experience. This extract from his art journal refers to the image of ‘Curves’ as a guitar rather than a violin.
“My drawing was inspired by the guitar done with bones and I ask myself ‘how many bones did the artist use to create that art?’ At the same time I remember…. how many people I saw drowning in water when we tried to escape Libya. My picture is about the people who lost hope till they saw a plane across the sky… From the art of Anton Schranz’s ‘view of the Grand Harbour’, I decided to draw the sea… the experience I had about the sea had so many different faces, but the most beautiful thing is you’ll get rescued in time. Thanks, first of all to God and secondly to the person who rescues you…”
My transformation through art
Listening to participants made me think about the unfairness of life. Or perhaps that I had so much to unlearn about one’s path in life. Had I been raised the way they have been and going through what most of them have had to face…the unreasonable family members and the injustices they had to deal with… I would have probably ended up in prison too.
Interacting with this group was very rewarding. It transformed my ways of seeing life and provoked countless questions concerning the forces that somehow keep directing our decisions and the illusion of control in our life path. Who are we to judge unless we’ve also been on the same path? At times, I wished I could give up my present job and carry out art community projects at prison full time. But then I realised there are other indirect ‘prisons’ where my service is required.
Outcomes – deeper thinking
Through holistic educational strategies, skills were being realised. It was evident in their self-evaluation and final interviews, that participants felt they had acquired some ability which would be useful in life.
One said: “I learned how to think deeper, how to listen fully to others, how to express myself clearly… all these skills are important for life”.
The study indicated that regardless of their artistic background, the participants could experience connection with both the physical and inner world, by using their sense of ‘seeing’ while looking at art. Indeed, looking carefully at artworks helps to shift one’s focus to the present moment. For a short while we experience a slowing down from unnecessary thoughts, concerns and constant distractions.
This doctoral study is not an end in itself. The project served the participants’ well-being but it is aligned with the question of how it can serve society. It urges me to explore how art education can serve to plant a seed of change no matter how small. That’s regardless of whether I will be able to witness that transformation in my lifetime!
The study felt worthwhile. I could observe my transformation as well in considering art’s worth for meaning-making rather than for insatiable consumption.
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Malta’s National Art Museum: