This Christian Artists week had each day a plenairy meeting in the format of a plenum. These plenums were done by key speakers John Smith (Australia), and Arne Hoglund (Sweden). These plenums had one major aspect: the need tob e real.
REAL. Viewing all the forms of art as presented on stage (music, performing arts), the exposition, prose, etc we must ask ourselves how real is all of that. Aren’t we here and there not facing immitation, superficiality? Especially in the area bands and praise & worship. It sounds so much the same. As well in some of the graphic arts, and dance (praise and worship dance) we face the same question. So as CA we want to address the question of authenticity, artistic integrity and how we mirror that into the real world.
Do we understand where the real world of arts is. Do we have an idea and understanding of the real nature of our society? If we include the fall of the Iron Curtain. What will this mean for the people’s from Eastern Europe? Will they surrender to the cheap, superficial, liberal-capitalistic world view? How we can make clear that as well the so called ‘free world’ is suffering from plastic arts, kitsch, superficiality, egoism, narcism.
NEED. There is an urgency we should understand. The world around us is changing very fast. Do we understand the powerstructures and how to stand up for what is right, just, beautiful, uplifting, honorable. And the vehicles to do that is our personal life and our art form. We need to break out from our ghetto’s. Such ghetto can be our way of thinking, our way of living.
As the challenge of a changing world is so clear and important, decided is that for the next years to come the plenum part will be directed to understanding the REAL world. So starting with 1991 will start a series, called the symposium, where we will address step by step all these aspects. These aspects deal with the social, political, economic structures who influence so much our daily life.