“Artistic creation is not selfish”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question: 

“How do I carry on creating when the world is in crisis?

Materials and resources are not infinite, the world is plagued by wars, genocide and the destruction of ecosystems – pollution and direct harm caused to the planet for the material wealth for the few. I’m at a point in which I feel artistic creation feels selfish and unimportant. I feel the weight of guilt in the materials I use, the journey they’ve taken to reach me. It feels like nothing I can make or create will balance the debt I owe for the use of such precious materials when the earth can provide so much. It feels like spiritual paralysis.”

Kat Wong, founder of career change platform Oh Yeah:

There will be many others who feel this. The reality of the world, and the multiple crises we’re witnessing and feeling, has sharpened to such an extent that one can only understand the paralysis – especially for those who feel empathy more deeply than others. There’s no doubt that these last few years have been a real wake-up call.

But how can you pour that feeling into an expression that you value?

If artistic creation, in the form you typically work with, feels selfish and unimportant, what form of expression could you explore that reflects where you are at right now? One that doesn’t require the materials you usually use. But perhaps another method that you’ve not yet experimented with, which is sustainable, can emotionally feed you, and represents how we can collectively progress in the world. See it as a bridge from reality to how it can help people understand, connect and challenge the status quo. And how you yourself want to articulate your debt to the world and Mother Nature.

Artistic creation is not selfish. Some of our greatest ideas and artistic expression come from facing our biggest, darkest chapters in our lives or in world history. This is very different from being tone deaf and not understanding our own privileges when it comes to expressing our work. We’ve learned through history that some of the most profound works, including music, have captured pain and systemic injustices through social and political commentary. And in a visual sense, probably one of the biggest demonstrations of this, in recent times, is the open-air East Side Gallery in Berlin. 118 artists from 21 countries shared their experiences with their murals on the longest, existing section of the Berlin Wall, weeks after the main fall in 1989, reflecting not only the tyranny of the Cold War but also becoming a symbol of peace through their art. What was a hateful symbol of oppression and division evolved into a permanent monument of unity, joy, and hope – and it has protected memorial status, allowing future generations to understand its history… its story.

We all have our own experience of grief, guilt and pain. So how can you truly reflect earth’s beauty, but rewrite your own brief? Start testing, playing and experimenting through different mediums. Use your voice, your movement or the written word. And more importantly, see how it can help you and others to create better human connection. Give yourself permission, start from there, and see where it takes you.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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