Today's (03-07-2019) version of our Declaration of Intent:

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Declaration of Intent

by Young Artists Feed Forward

 

We are young artists and we assume that all young artists truly want to engage with the times we live in.

Engaging is about having the guts to pose important questions while having the humility to admit that you do not have the answers.

Humility is knowing that art should not and cannot solve any problems. But art exists in the world of those who potentially could.

Activating this potential will not happen under the current ideologies. A new set of attitudes is necessary; attitudes that will not be found in the current art education system or the commoditized art market.

We are neither activists nor utopists but we want a different future. Not different from the present, but different from the future currently offered to us.

We want to slow down and take a good look at our own time.

We are young artists and we want to make the possibility of change possible.

 

We propose a collective that takes into account the ability of the individual to be undivided and feel personal responsibility.

We acknowledge that on your own you can achieve many things.

We propose a collective that supports the integrity of its members when it's being challenged by outside forces.

We acknowledge that on your own you can change almost nothing.

We propose a collective that picks up the projects of the individual and realises these as a group; sharing time, resources and knowledge.

Personal achievement can no longer be used as a measure for success. The idea of authorship encourages affirming, rather than questioning, your position.

We propose a collective that does not provide an identity for its members. This is not a movement.

We propose a collective that embraces internal conflict.

 

We want to embrace conflict.

Speaking up, whether ethically or aesthetically - on any topic from any point of view is guaranteed to cause conflict in one way or another.

A conflict is not a problem. A conflict is two things taking up the same space simultaneously; a problem is a judgement.

To embrace conflict is to validate conflict as it appears.

To solve a problem is to negate one part of it and affirm another. This is not engagement, but denial.

We want to embrace conflict.

 

We are not outside the things we don't agree with.

We are not outside the system, or the creative industries, or the art world. We are not outside cheap smartphones from China or enormous oil company subsidies. We are not outside single-use plastic bags.

We are in the middle of things as much as anybody else.

We see that the questions of our times can not yet be solved by existing ideas.

We want to be part of a context that makes fundamental change possible.

Art does not have any solutions,

but art is not outside the world of people who one day might.

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Actual version