Art as Catalyst for Difficult Conversations and Healing

This article, written by museum educator Yuna Dranichnikova (www.yunadranichnikova.art), is featured in the second edition of .ART Odyssey. Get your copy on Amazon today.

Looking at art often pits us with many questions about artistic intent, emotions, meaning, and impact. Art serves as a powerful catalyst for thought and reflection, but it can also facilitate healing.

When we tackle the idea of the healing powers of art, it is important to define what “healing” entails. At its core, healing is the process of recovering, restoring, and becoming sound again. Talking and feeling heard is the first step to healing. Looking at art and asking questions often leads to open-hearted dialogues about thoughts, opinions, life experiences, and emotions. This is especially true when the art deals with challenging topics like love, death, pain, and grief, allowing viewers to explore suppressed feelings from their lives. Conversation becomes a crucial healing tool, helping participants tell the story, articulate their emotions, and shift their brains from rumination to reflection.

As an art educator and creative producer for museum programs, I witness daily how art can become an agent for addressing difficult topics like trauma, violence, and oppression. Through these dialogues, art contributes significantly to both individual and community healing, transforming pain into understanding.

However, a boring lecture about art history is hardly a space for healing. To encourage and facilitate deep, difficult conversations about art, certain conditions need to be met, stemming from a trauma-informed approach in art education. Whether you are an artist, curator, educator, or writer, these tips will be useful in any setting where a conversation about art is happening.

How to have a difficult conversation about art

To help people feel comfortable and open up, the conversation should be person-centered, focusing on the thoughts and needs of the participants rather than on what others think is acceptable or accurate. Consider how the artwork relates to your personal life, what feelings it evokes, and if you have experienced similar emotions or intentions to those portrayed by the artist.

The dialogue about art needs to be based on respect, dignity, and curiosity for each person, eliminating judgment about interpretations and thoughts. There is a common misconception that discussing artworks requires a certain education or experience level, often leading to fear of museums and galleries. Being brave enough to speak up and share thoughts about art already deserves respect.

Each participant needs to feel affirmed and listened to, which can be as basic as not interrupting, not talking over others, taking turns when speaking, and sharing.

Acknowledge that everyone brings their unique perspective and experience into the conversation. To make the conversation inclusive and comfortable for the participants, it is crucial to be culturally aware, recognizing that culture and traditions play an important role in how we view the world, art and even talking about past experiences. Verify the usage of correct terms and definitions—from pronouns to ethnonyms—to respect different cultures.

Lastly, in the conversation, make sure to account for a participant’s age, and identity. When talking about challenging subjects, feel free to use disclaimers for sensitive information.

3 artworks that prompt challenging conversations

Gustav Klimt: The Kiss

“The Kiss (Lovers)” is one of Gustav Klimt’s most famous artworks (b. 1862, Vienna, Austria; d. 1918). While this painting of two gilded entwined figures is widely recognized across the world, it is not without controversy. Scholars and researchers debate whether it depicts romantic love or a suffocating and dangerous sexual force.

Questions to think about:

What is the first thing you notice about this painting?

What emotions do you think people in the artwork could be feeling?

What are the situations when you feel loved the most? What are the situations when you feel scared?

Sophia Wallace: Bodies That Matter

Sophia Wallace (b. 1978, New York City, USA) conducted portrait studies of people who are “otherized” — seen as different — due to their race, sexuality, gender, age, or ability. The series of black and white photography invites viewers to reflect on how they perceive others and what unconscious biases may come to the surface.

Questions to think about:

What emotions do you notice in these photographs?

Who are the people in the photographs? Try to imagine. Where do you think they could live? What do you think they could do for work?

What assumptions people who don’t know you well could make about you? How accurate are they?

Robert Duncanson: The Garden of Eden

Idyllic semitropical landscape by Robert S. Duncanson (b. 1821, Fayette, USA; d. 1872) depicts an exotic Eden surrounded by meadows and palm trees. However, it is not as plain and straightforward as it seems at first: although Duncanson never explicitly addressed race issues in his work, there is debate among art historians on whether in this work, he reflects on his complex experience as an African American artist in 19th-century America. The Garden of Eden could symbolize America as a primitive wilderness garden and represent the artist’s vision of a “perfect earth” and hoped-for freedom.

Questions to think about: