Art, Academia, and Responsibility

Elena: I still cannot decide whether to focus my thesis on community-based theatre or on digital art activism. Mateo: If I were you, I would choose the one that unsettles you more. It is precisely that discomfort that often signals intellectual growth. Priya: I am not so sure. For many students, what matters most is employability, not existential unease. Elena: Yet it is art that first made me question the tidy narratives I grew up with. After watching that documentary on migration, never have I looked at national borders in the same way. Mateo: That is exactly what art at its best can do: destabilise what we take for granted. But universities, instead of nurturing that capacity, often commodify it. You are encouraged to be creative, as long as your creativity is easily marketable. Priya: You make it sound almost conspiratorial. Universities are under pressure too. Public funding has been shrinking for years; not until you see the budget sheets do you realise how precarious the situation is. Elena: Still, when tuition fees rise, who is it that gets excluded? It is usually students from marginalised communities. And ironically, these are the voices that community-based theatre tries to amplify. Mateo: Exactly. It was during my fieldwork in that informal settlement that I understood how powerful collective storytelling can be. Participants were not merely subjects of research; they became co-authors. Priya: But there is a tension, is there not? On the one hand, you want to highlight injustice; on the other, you risk aestheticising other people’s suffering. Mateo: I worry about that constantly. Rarely do academics interrogate their own authority as rigorously as they interrogate their data. Elena: Perhaps that is why I am drawn to digital art activism. The audience can respond instantly, subvert the artist’s message, even remix the work. It is no longer the expert alone who defines the meaning. Priya: Whether on a stage or a screen, what seems crucial is reciprocity. Without it, even the most sophisticated project can feel ethically hollow. Mateo: And maybe it is this ethical unease, rather than aesthetic pleasure, that our curricula should foreground.