A Call for Assemblage: Exploring Art's Transformative Power in Matters of the Heart and Mind

Abstract

Creating art is the work of emotion, embodiment, pure experience, cross-time communication, and the expression of one’s greatest hopes and dreams. The intangible aftereffects of colonization penetrate every level of our existence. Coupled with capitalism, decolonial struggles for repair are a difficult path to navigate when the world we inhabit continues to respond to colonial material and metaphysical constructions. This study aims to explore the potential of art as a theoretical foundation and a spiritual practice in deconstructing coloniality. Situating coloniality broadly within the realm of the heart and mind, this work begins with a focus on the unique works of assemblage artist Betye Saar. She constructs what I call a spirituality of assemblage that is all at once art practice, spiritual practice, and theory of relating with the world. Saar’s artwork presents a 3-part transformation that highlights art’s potential as a tool. The latter half of this study focuses on my own practice of this spiritual-theoretical process via poetry attended by an artist’s statement to reaffirm this transformational work. Concluding this work is a short commentary on my use of art in community organizing as an example of how I have connected my individual changes regarding the heart and mind, with the communal and the systemic, as further evidence of transformation that extends to material realities. Interactions with theoretical, spiritual, and artistic mediums across my academic journey, as well as embodied practices through organizing and activist work, have guided me to this understanding my own ministerial call of which I showcase here.