chapter 8: To Give, to Challenge, to Learn through Art: What it Means to Build Community

At this moment in time, I understand community as beyond any measure of mileage or sight. Community is beyond the way in which our physical presence presents itself. I perceive community as our entire world. As living beings, we must understand that everything we do affects other living beings thousands of miles away. If that isn’t a community, then I don’t know what is. The purpose of this chapter is to promote the process of self-reflection for the reader while increasing the reader’s consciousness of problematizing artmaking and what is meant by community. First, I explore what is meant by community. Second, I discuss how I experience what is meant by building community through artmaking. Third, I investigate the impact this new way of understanding community through artmaking impacts my values, beliefs, and sense of who I am as a young Black man. And finally, I reflect on the influence my sense of who I am and artmaking plays in building community.