When the World Feels Like It’s Breaking, Art Saves Our Souls
The song opens with a familiar thrum, followed by a voice that’s become a mainstay of American culture.
“Streets of Minneapolis,” the new song by legendary artist Bruce Springsteen, released on January 28 in response to the fatal ICE shootings of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, speaks to the fury of a nation.
Springsteen wrote the song in remembrance of Good and Pretti, and in acknowledgment of the citizens of Minneapolis and innocent people near and far who’ve become targets of the current administration’s violence and lies. Its message is resistance. Its purpose is to commemorate and witness. Its result is strength and fortitude.
Also on the streets of Minneapolis have been the singers of Singing Resistance Minneapolis, an organized singing group that has drawn droves of people near and far for its peaceful songs about strength, rage, beauty, and courage.
These singers offer us a way to process and witness, and to give energy to a critical conversation at hand: that of our rights, dignity, and safety.
For centuries, artists have been creating music to make political statements. Mention this to someone, and a song will likely come to mind. Maybe it’s “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, the beautiful-and-sorrowful early 70s ballad about racism, the realities of the Vietnam war, and poverty. Or perhaps it's David Bowie’s “Heroes” that acknowledges the love between two people on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall. Or Woody Guthrie and Martin Hoffman’s “Deportee” about the migrant workers who died in a horrific plane crash in 1948. The global catalogue of songs meant to raise our collective consciousness is epic.
And so is the arsenal of all artistic works that express defiance. Gorgeous paintings, sculptures, clothing, and more have offered ways to peacefully acknowledge and protest. We see these pieces all over the world. In Minneapolis, we see it in a group of knitters who gathered to knit ‘Melt the Ice’ caps in a united effort to galvanize opposition to ICE.
Engaging with the arts, be it crafting, performing, writing, or something else, gives us the opportunity to not only create tangible means of resistance, but also to down-regulate and feel resilience, says Daisy Fancourt, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health and author of the new book Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save our Lives. Art gives “our brains opportunities to understand and express our emotions, engaging neurological regions involved in the regulation of our emotions,” Fancourt tells us. “Being able to control the art we are creating can help us feel a sense of personal control in our lives, as well as autonomy and mastery.
Fancourt says there are “so many examples of the arts being used to help us process and also challenge events happening around the world,” to draw attention to large-scale conflict and trauma. Two of the several examples she included are Ukrainian artist Oleksiy Sai’s Black Cloud in Kyiv and Kenyan youth artists’ murals and graffiti protesting police brutality.
Art gives us a way to stand up for our values in our own time and our own way. Each of us is unique. One person’s protest may be marching for days, while others may be writing a poem. In the same breath, one person may scream about their beliefs, while another keeps their rage quiet but finds catharsis in reading. How we process is personal.
What art speaks of goes beyond our differences and the brief span of our lives. It reveals the parts of this world most worthy of examination and the ability in ourselves to always fight for good.
As Springfield sings,
“Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We'll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst.”
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