IF YOUR ADVOCACY WERE ART, WOULD IT DEFINE THE FRAME OR WOULD A FRAME DEFINE IT?
The only book related to art I’ve found in the cottage I’m staying in is no ordinary collection of works. It’s “Surrounded by Art - The Julius Bär Art Collection” which tells an uncommon art story of one of the oldest Swiss banks, Julius Bär Group Ltd, a private banking corporation dating back to 1890.
The firm’s original founders and partners of the firm were art lovers, to begin with, and a few of the Bär family members directly involved with the business were active sculptors. Contemporary artists made the family’s circle of friends. As the bank’s premises were growing, so was the collection of artworks purchased to adorn the spaces.
In 1981, an art committee was established to promote young, rising artists in Switzerland. Raymond J. Bär, grandson of one of the family’s sculptors, says in the foreword to the book that the presence of this impressive, diverse collection in the workplace “has a stimulating effect on staff”.
When there is a sincere intention, and I believe true passion knows no other, the result is harmonious and self-perpetuating in its honesty. It allows growth through honest questions and honest responses.
I know, plenty of corporations purchase art, nothing unusual about that! In most cases, however, the art must fit their pre-set PR frames.
Plenty of corporations and organisations have also been engaging in creating workplaces that embrace neurodiversity. Here as well frames often are predetermined: make it look as if we cared, and make it look good. Nothing can stick out beyond the frame. Only experts’ opinions so that no PC scandal stains the canvases we’ve invested in.
Every art movement in history broke through the previous standards of appropriateness with a scandal. A scandal happens when honest (com)passion - the language of the heart - liberates itself from a frame. It chooses to be a masterpiece and not a decoration. A mere decoration always feels discomforted by art because it has no intentional depth and stirs no conversations. Its purpose is to appear pleasing within its surroundings.
It’s dumped along with the trend that has sustained it.
Likewise, if your advocacy were art, would it exhibit itself in an agreeably appropriate manner and form, or would it stimulate with its inadequately raw [frameless] presence?
If you look up the work of Balthasar Burkhard (especially his series on individual human parts), one of the artists featured in “Surrounded by Art,” an understandable fear of being in conflict may dissipate at least a little bit. Allowing our intention to determine the frame means flowing our flow, which intuitively navigates us towards the angles in harmony with that which we encounter.
This choice is between forcing the other’s frame out of the equation versus allowing our natural curiosity and compassion to guide us through the interaction. In the first case, we are just like the 'framing one'. We believe to be frameless and thus all-encompassing while imposing our frame of beliefs. Standing for all that is beyond rigid frames and yet cancelling all that is within them.
This is where I catch myself more than I’d love to.
With the latter choice, compassion and curiosity will head straight for the meeting point of the different perspectives because these are tools of co-creation. If there is no meeting point, these intuitive powers will hint to us to move on with grace, because can an honest intention of the heart be wasting time on self-righteousness while there are infinite others ready to co-create?
Here, we remain honestly frameless by loving acceptance of the frames around us. This is where I’d love to catch myself more, and this is what I wish for Neurodivergence Gallery.
And as I wanted to leave it there, a follow-up thread comes up: the difference between a frame, as presented here, and a boundary of space…
No, I’m leaving it here for now.
Thank you for your time!
Yours,
Marta Styczeń
P.S. If you would like to collaborate in any way, please email us at neurodivergence.gallery@gmail.com.
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