The Goodnewspaper The 2024 Art Edition

HELLO HELLO! One of my favorite creative minds of the moment is Yumi Sakugawa, a Japanese-Okinawan-American interdisciplinary artist who leads meditations on creativity as a tool for liberation, care, and connection. It is through her endearing comics and writings that I have come to believe in creativity and artistry not just as a finite project, craft, or skill — but as a generations-long endeavor to build the world in which we want to live. Sukugawa writes: “Whatever you do today and tomorrow and for the rest of your life is an act of creativity.” Certainly, many acts of creativity include painting, sculpting, sewing, dancing, singing, or even preparing a beautiful meal. But everything else can also fit under that umbrella: fashioning meaningful experiences, crafting special relationships, and nurturing the world…

New Study Suggests Interest In Art Leads To A More Meaningful Life A new study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that the way people engage with art is related to their sense of meaning in life. “I am broadly interested in studying meaning in life,” said the study's author, Joshua A. Wilt, a senior research associate at Case Western Reserve University, in a statement. “I'm also interested in how involvement with art may result in deeper existential and spiritual understandings.” To do this, Wilt and his team conducted two studies. The first included 300 participants equally split into three samples: undergraduate students with some art experience, students interested in art, and individuals affiliated with art schools and art organizations. Participants took an online study that measured their…

Imagine floating towers teeming with lush greenery, that look out over clean waterways overflowing with wildlife. As you glance down, you realize pedestrians outnumber cars — which fly on renewable energy — and people mill about in community gardens and meeting spaces as plants and solar panels alike drink in sunlight. Welcome to the dream world of a “solarpunk” city. Solarpunk is derived from cyberpunk, a genre of speculative fiction that was coined by author Bruce Bethke in 1983 with the release of his sci-fi short story of the same name, which follows a group of young rebel hackers. From there, cyberpunk spawned a slew of futuristic aesthetics, ideals, and stories. But solarpunk — a term which first sprang up online in 2008 — goes a step further than cyberpunk,…

When it comes to investing in and protecting the arts, advocates often seek a mosaic of support. From funding programming for arts education in schools or community centers, to grants from local governments to bring public art into architecture and infrastructure, all of these things are necessary to build a strong, creative community. In many cases, though, funding the arts isn't always as sexy as a charity auction, or as fun as a car wash for your public school's marching band. In fact, funding the arts often looks like making sure artists themselves can pay their rent. While residencies are a great avenue for artists to be compensated through housing and other material support, many do not offer fully comprehensive benefits. And, although they are prestigious and creatively fulfilling —…

Using recycled materials to create art is not necessarily a groundbreaking concept, especially since the inaccessible price of most new art supplies is one of the largest barriers to entry when it comes to a traditional career in art. But fortunately, creativity exists far outside of the confines of the priciest oil paints or the trendiest textiles, and countless artists have found success with a material all of us have far too much of: waste. From small “buy nothing ” groups that encourage the reuse and recycling of art supplies in cities across the globe to major Hollywood set designers reusing props on blockbuster sets, trash has become treasure in more ways than one. But some of the most breath-taking recycled art pieces of recent memory are those that illustrate…

In Manhattan, New York, The Museum of Jewish Heritage is called a “living Memorial to the Holocaust,” known for sharing the first-hand stories of survivors. But in 2024, most Holocaust survivors are in their 80s or 90s, meaning those first-hand accounts will soon become history themselves. Jack Kliger, the museum's president and CEO, is the son of survivors and said the museum is now preparing for a “post-survivor world,” per an article by The New York Times. “What I care about is what your grand-children's grandchildren will know,” he said. While video records obviously exist, museum curators feared that seeing one video or one testimony might provide only a fragmented view of this detailed, tragic event in history. So, they've turned to artificial intelligence to maintain the deeply personal nature…