Foreword

In the mid part of the twentieth century, the American philosopher, John Dewey, talking of the historic cultural conditions that led to the siphoning off of the creative function into a particular class, regretted the fact that this gave:
Sanction to the cultural conditions which prevented the utilisation of the immense potentialities for the attainment of knowledge that were resident in the activities of the arts.

Much later, in 1984 in the UK, the Shelton Trust launched its Campaign for Cultural Democracy, and declared in its charter that art was an active, participatory process. It described cultural democracy in the following terms:
Let us tell the story... We believe that people have the right to create their own culture. This means taking part in the telling of the story, not having a story told of them. This story of ours... We believe that people have the right to put across their own point of view in their own particular way. This means not being told how to do this by people who don't understand it. Now listen to our story.... We believe that people should have the right to reply. This means that people should have equal access to resources to give them an equal voice. Through creative activity we interact with, gain understanding of, and change the world around us. More people have creative potential than are allowed to realise it, and more people have the right to participate meaningfully in the making and defining of their own culture than are given opportunity. Art is both process and product, and we may have concentrated for too long, not only on the ‘product’ but on particular kinds of products, made by particular kinds of people. Through more general access to 'process' we unleash the potential for products we haven't yet dreamt of, and allow the dignity of creative action to previously marginalised sections of our community.

I once wrote:
Good community arts practice is empowering and invigorating, and facilitates true participation in the process of naming, describing and affecting the world around us.
This is absolutely true in the case of Wellington’s Art Compass. Led by its director, Marcel Baaijens, it engages in a democracy of expression that respects difference, and values the previously undervalued. Baaijens, a New Zealander who has pioneered a similar project in the United States, has a profound belief in the power of art ‘to change society’s perceptions of people with intellectual disabilities’ and to allow for recognition of their ‘unique qualities and strengths’. He has put this belief into practice at Art Compass and the veracity of this belief is evident in the work that the participants have produced for this show. The term ‘Cultural Democracy’ isn’t heard much these days, but it has a resonance that crosses continents. Culture moves through, and is made by, living, breathing human beings who, be they beggar or prince, may contribute to our understanding of the world by speaking to us from their own special standpoint. Through their artwork the participants in Art Compass’s exhibition, ‘Until Proven’, are participating in a democracy that allows that they have a voice, a view, and a route to beauty and profundity through the practice of art.

Professor Sally J. Morgan

Head of School of Fine Arts
Massey University
Wellington

11 October 2002