2013 Home/Land

Curator Essay

Homeland As a Social Value

This is an exhibition by the ARTNAUTS Art Collective, who are a group of artists/professors in art departments throughout the United States and includes other art faculty who are from Mexico and South America. The ARTNAUTS were founded in the mid-1990s and have been having art exhibitions at the International Center of Bethlehem in Palestine since 2004.

The ARTNAUTS are dedicated to having a visual dialogue about common issues of social change with international others. In pursuit of this goal, the ARTNAUTS have had exhibitions in Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Palestine, Peru, Russia, and Spain.

C. Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination classified societies according to whether their values were cherished or not, and if there were perceived threats to these values. Thus, he theorized that societies experienced the following states:

• WELL-BEING: Values are cherished and no threat to them exists;
• CRISIS: Values are cherished and a threat to these values is present;
• INDIFFERENCE: Values are not recognized, known, or cherished and no threat to them is perceived;
• ANXIETY: Values are not recognized, known, or cherished but a sense of threat is felt.

All societies have a concept of home, land, and homeland. How a society views these concepts depends on their values. Not all societies (i.e., social groups or individuals within a society) give the same value to these concepts. Everyday life involves multiple realities. One country’s “crisis” can be perceived by another country with “indifference;” “anxiety;” or not relating to them because they perceive themselves to be in a state of “wellbeing.”

Usually there is consensus among countries on values that have world significance. In some situations, politics and power play a role in a particular country’s deviation from world consensus.

The ARTNAUTS come to Palestine to share their views on values of “home, land, and homeland” in hopes of better understanding similarities and differences in the human condition.