Enlightenment Through Collaboration
“All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.”
Shantideva.
On the first afternoon I visited West Vernon Elementary in South Central Los
Angeles, I found myself in what is referred to in education pedagogy as a “teaching
moment“. As I was saying my goodbye to a group of young people who would work
with me on the South Central Collaborative Community Project - Divine, one student
asked me, “What do you do, what’s your job?” I thought of his question as an invitation
to have the students practice learning through observation so I asked them in my paintsplattered pants, felt pen attached T-shirt, and pigment polka-dotted work boots, “What
do you think my job is by what you see?”
“Doctor!” shouted the first student. I had to pause for a minute, to search my
mind for what could possibly have given him the impression that I was a doctor. As I
started to wonder about the idea, I thought of the healing aspects of working
collaboratively with people.
Collaboration affects the physical, psychological, and emotional health of
everyone involved. A successful collaboration transcends individual privileges where
separate expectations are replaced with equality, and collective self-interest.
Disconnection between us as individuals fosters competition for the limited resources
around us, actualizing pain and sickness. Transforming ourselves from egocentric agents
of self-benefit to inclusive homeopaths manufactures good feelings for everyone. Feeling
good is a physical, psychological, and emotional symptom of being healthy. In creating
good feelings for many people, collaboration serves as a collective framework for
healing.
So I had to praise the little man for the clairvoyance to point out a part of me that
is not easily seen – a doctor/healer. Nevertheless this teaching moment in my mind was
about stating what seemed obvious to me. So after acknowledging his perception, I asked
the group of students to guess again at my occupation.
“Teacher!” shouted a second student. Despite my unacademic attire, I could see
how I might appear as a teacher. Not many adults spend time around elementary schools
and just “hang out” or associate with children who are not their own unless they are in the
business of teaching. In collaborative practice, everyone has moments of being the
teacher who inspires learning through personal expertise. By working in collaboration,
each participant acts as an educator in a humanist, problem posing way.
And the truth was that I had been in and out of the classroom at least a few times
a year for 15 years, which professionally affirmed her intuition. So after acknowledging
her insightful answer, I asked the group of students again to guess my profession by what
they could see.
“Photographer” shouted the third student. I was holding a camera at the time, and
we had just bonded through 36 exposures of AFGA 100 taken together. This was an
observant answer, and I told him so, which made us collectively nod. This was an
answer that made us all feel like we had learned from observation.
This answer also expanded the scope of my understanding of collaboration. I
started the conversation with an idea that these new friends would look at the paint on my
jeans, and see a painter. Instead my new friends described what they saw which was
beyond my own vision and perspective, as is so often the case in dialogue and
collaboration. I had assumed that this exercise to guess my occupation would incite
contemplation for the young people, but it also made me reflect on who I am, and grow
from their wisdom – a teaching moment for me. Such dialogical growth and
transformation is a regular result of collaboration.
Though I now recognize my learning from the students, at the time I was stuck on
having them notice my paint splatters. The students sensed that we had not guessed the
answer I hoped they would so they raised their hands to guess again. It took two more
guesses to surmise that I was also a “painter” for my job. But it was the second to the last
response that continues to resonate with me about the nature of collaboration.
“You do magic”, came from the small person in voice that sounded like an
explanation as much as an answer. After the small sage shared with me his notion, I
realized that he was right. By working in collaboration magic is made. It makes sense
that a child would make such a postulate, as young people believe in the supernatural
while “magic” is a word we grown-ups rarely use. As children we repeatedly learn
lessons of etiquette and morality through stories of sorcery and mysticism. As adults we
seldom think of magic beyond the slight of hand, and are even less likely to connect
magic to divinity or spirituality. The absence of magic in the contemporary adult
consciousness is what Columbia University religious scholar Robert Thurman speaks of
as being “spiritually bankrupt”. Though we Americans acknowledge Christian god ideals
in our most important societal symbols - pledging our oneness to our flag, pledging truth
in a court of law, and pledging trust in our money – we can easily become skeptical if not
hostile towards divinity outside of institutional structures. If we could imagine a nude
man covered in chalky pigment walking into a corner store anywhere in America, it
would be easy to imagine him being ridiculed, or arrested. Thousands of Samadis
gathering for the Kumba Mela in India however is just one of countless contemporary
visible reminders of magic and realms beyond the physical in South Asian culture.
Our American/Western adult distance from things magical and esoteric is an
affliction that manifests as a perception of a separate physical self, disconnected from
other beings. This egocentric individualism is subsequently evidenced in the social
structures of our society. Even for many of us who aspire to social change, we work
through the systems and beliefs of our physical world that are individualistic and
competitive. Photography, painting, and traditional practices of Western Art for instance
are like the western institutions that reflect our individualistic and competitive society.
Commercial galleries, auction houses, and museums help construct this individualized
cultural supremacy by disproportionately stockpiling objects and dictating their
significance in financial worth and limited cultural currency. Quantitative values are set
by art institutions, artists, and critics to become models and goals for others to strive
towards all over the world. Special exhibitions like biennials, those contemporary art
establishment pinnacles declaring relevance and achievement, move from places like
New York and Venice to Sao Paulo and Johannesburg. And in the wake of exhibitions of
individual merit and projects of institutional esteem throughout the world, we see cultural
expressions dominated by individual western concepts, formats, and process that limit
inclusion, and spiritual significance.
At this time of unparalleled global connection amongst humanity, there is a
growing discussion in academic circles about broader cultural and social political
considerations that involve collaborative practices. These practices are magical in their
ability to develop cross-cultural dialogue without sacrificing the unique identities of
individual speakers. Grant Kester has recently written about the appearance of
collaborative practice though calling it different names. He describes a largely arts based
field of references when he writes,
“For (Suzanne) Lacy, who is also active as a critic, this work represents a “new
genre” of public art. UK-based artist/organizers Ian Hunter and Celia Larner
employ the term “Littoral” art, to evoke the hybrid or in-between nature of these
practices. French critic Nicolas Bourriaud has coined the term “relational
aesthetic” to describe works based around communication and exchange. Homi K.
Bhabha, in an essay from the Conversations at the Castle project in Atlanta, writes
of “conversational art,” and Tom Finkelpearl refers to “dialogue-based public
art.” … I will be using the term "dialogical" to describe these works. The concept
of a dialogical art practice is derived from the Russian literary theorist Mikhail
Bakhtin who argued that the work of art can be viewed as a kind of conversation;
a locus of differing meanings, interpretations and points of view.”
Whatever the intellectual location, the path of working with others is a practice in
the service of others, to assist in a positive collective experience that benefits the whole.
Success in collaboration is an ongoing process achieved by the exchange of the self and
the other. The equal exchange of self and other is what Tibetan Bodhissatva Shantideva
explained as the spirit of enlightenment. Collaboration is a structure for enlightenment.
By being open and communicating with others in a dialogical practice, we share
information that magically transforms our ignorance about each other. Successful
collaboration encourages us to listen to others, and see people through common
experiences. The shared experiences may be the focus of the collaboration, or may be
reflections from our past that we encounter in the participatory process. Any differences
between people in successful collaborations become accepted over time as a substructure
of commonality grows. In fact diversity is the food of collaboration, with individual
differences serving as expertise to share for the dialectical good. Through reciprocity
with people we become less fearful at least, and more supportive at best, and
collaboration becomes a conveyance for connection.
However collaboration is like yoga, or meditation where the physical actions
alone do not symbolize levels of spiritual enlightenment. Just because a person can put
their ankles behind their neck in Supta Kurmasana or sit all day without talking doesn’t
mean that they have reached never-ending liberation or are any closer to finishing their
work to be better. Our spiritual enlightenment is not a goal that is reached and eventually
“finished”, but a training that is ongoing. There is a constant striving for balance in
collaboration, but it is never quite there, as it is always moving and changing as we do.
Our ability to shrink our egos and dialogue with other people is a spiritual exercise as
boundless in its formats as there are combinations of people on the planet. It’s not easy,
but anybody can do the work. We each can practice being the change we would like to
see in the world. Like yoga or meditation, collaborative work is built upon special
techniques and skill sets to structure a deeper awareness. Simultaneously, all who
participate are teachers/learners, exchanging experiences in the education of each other.
Collaboration improves with practice, and wisdom – the seed of enlightenment - comes
from it over time.
And like Yoga, meditation, or many other methods involved with seeing the
world clearly, the responsibility for learning and practice in collaboration is personal, and
internal. In the Dhammapada (4,7) the Buddha says, “It is not what others do, or do not
do that is my concern: It is what I do, and what I do not do, that is my concern.” Efforts
of service can be precarious since our concern for others will sometimes make us want to
help or direct them in their enlightenment - like my own desire for the students to see me
as a painter in Los Angeles. The great personal challenges of being present, listening, and
reciprocity are the building blocks of collaboration that are produced through our
disciplined, dialogical action. To produce generosity, openness, kindness, and the other
elements of successful collaboration, we must first model and live those elements. The
responsibility for being a skillful collaborator, like the most direct place for change in the
world, ultimately resides at ourselves.
For about three weeks in May of 2003 I talked to residents of the expansive,
ambiguous geographic region that is called South (Central) Los Angeles, and eventually
connected with Oscar Presidario (Mr. P.), who worked with the West Vernon Elementary
After School Program. Through afternoon visits to the school, watching track practices,
and helping the students take photographs of themselves with my camera, Mr. P., the
students, and myself developed a friendship, a partnership, a collaboration. Mr. P, the
young people, and miscellaneous community folks sketched projections of themselves
from clear polyester drawings I made from their photographs that were illuminated from
an overhead projector. This was a social event, and the projections created a session of
drawing, opportunity for personal dialogue, community connection and play.
I returned to West Vernon Elementary and led a multidisciplinary workshop with
students from the after school program investigating what made them divine. By first
talking about a word that none of the students knew the meaning of, writing about it, and
finally crafting an object from their idea, a series of artworks were made.
The final products of this process were drawings of the students, paintings of
students, large quotations, and collages/illustrations made by the students addressing
divinity. Initially envisioned as a non-permissional installation on a vacant lot fence
across from West Vernon Elementary, the principal worked to secure permission to
mount the project on the schoolyard fence.
This project worked with residents to beautify their neighborhood with art works
that featured images of themselves and their voices, that they were directly involved in
creating. The project required a variety of professional, academic, and creative aptitudes
for “my job” and simultaneously demanded assistance from my collaborators in many
things I could not do. Concurrent to sharing our skills and resources to support a
collective experience I was changed like each of the participants in the process.
Throughout our collaboration we had flashes of enlightenment, and through a focused
creative process we made something that documented a facet of our change. The
experience made me a better person.
And even after installing the work to shrieks of joy from my many collaborators,
there is no real end to the project. The story of this self-initiated, self-funded endeavor
continued after I left Los Angeles, long after the principal removed the pieces because
she thought the neighborhood “element” would mess them up. Long after faculty and
members of the community protested the school and principal when the public work was
removed. The Story of the South (Central) Los Angeles Collaborative Community
Project – Divine continued on after the parents of the young participants told Mr. P that
their children wanted more books about artists and want to draw more. The effects from
the way we collaborated continue to echo indefinitely – to this essay at this moment - and
beyond anything with a physical form - - like magic.
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