Social art is grounded in mutual empowerment.

Martin Krenn: Mary Jane Jacob

In socially engaged art, some critics believe and are expecting from the artist that she or he can empower a marginalised community. Others think that this is exactly the problem of socially engaged art that these artists lose their autonomy because they have to act like social workers and help people. But my experience as an artist differs from both of these quite common views on social art. When I’ve been working with disfranchised or marginalised communities we were, in the best-case scenario, empowering each other and in the worst scenario, we had no collaboration at all. I never met, talked, discussed and developed things with people as someone who acts like a social worker; neither did they expect me to talk and work with them in such a way. It is more or less an exchange between experts from different backgrounds. When I am working with refugees we have to develop a different form of co-operation as it is when I join forces with activists and immigrants who have already settled down. So it seems to me that this notion of mutual empowerment is often overlooked in art discourse. What is your opinion about that?