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Art Now

Art is important right now for the same reasons that art has often been important when we aren’t in moments of crisis. Art has always been a method for documenting our moment in time and expressing who we are. Through art’s evolution, it has become a way to react and express our view of the world around us in uncommon ways. Whether it’s painting, or dance, or a deeply researched piece of esoteric culture expressed in some minimalist sound installation, art is often having a conversation of ideas and feelings that can’t be expressed with other forms of communication. In times of relative peace and calm it allows us to expand our thinking and charge ourselves creatively.

In times like the one we’re currently experiencing, it allows us to express emotional weight that we may be feeling, frustrated about being left unintelligible in our daily conversations with friends and family. Regurgitating news cycles, disaster planning, and memes. It allows us to feel connection in the past social climates that have similarly dealt with traumatic moments, and it encourages us to find our own ways of expressing these ideas, even providing us a platform for imagining the future.

There will be a significant amount of art being made about this time in the world, I’m sure, and like the rings of a tree, its thin brief layer builds upon those that came before it and will tell a story of expanding and adapting, laying down the foundation for where we go next.

By John Berner