In the TED talk How Painting can Transform Communities, Haas and his partner Hahn explained how their artwork changed the lives of many lower class communities. It all started when the two men were in Vila Cruzeiro, Rio shooting a documentary. While being there, the placement and structures of the houses sparked their creativity. The two men went on to wonder what the communities would look like if all the houses were painted, and this wonder became reality. The two men got a small team together and painted murals across buildings and walkways in low income communities. By creating these murals, the community that was so bad and violent, had something to be proud of and look forward to and just in general be happy about. While creating the artwork Haas and Hahn were able to connect to the community and make the murals more “organic” and meaningful to the people who lived there. The paintings not only spread happiness to its community but the pictures of the murals went viral and got a lot of positive feedback. This one project made communities so happy that Haas and Hahn started similar projects in North Philly, Curacao, Haiti and even more in Rio, in hopes of making communities happier, brighter, and more positive areas. The mural projects brought the communities together and helped them realize that their communities were important and beautiful and more than just another low class community. These murals not only changed the way that theses communities looked at art, but how many people in the world look at art. These projects proved that art makes the world a happier place.
In Rhy Southan’s essay “Is Art a Waste of Time?” Southan takes the readers on the journey with him while he travels with EA’s while trying to finish his own piece of writing. Southan starts off by explaining the EA’s goal. He explains that EA’s thinks the best way to help the less fortunate is to donate 10% of your income to a charity. He then goes on to the thought, is money more helpful or is giving you time more helpful for the less fortunate? At points he says “I think the world would be unlivable without art” but then goes along with the idea that “Artists paint the beautiful landscape in the front of them while the world burns”. As the article goes on it leaves the readers wondering where Southan opinion lays and what his overall opinion is on art. At the end of the essay it become a little more clear that Southan will continue to look at the bright side of art because he thinks that it will continue to make a difference in peoples like.
When comparing these two ideas, I found that in so many different ways they are so similar yet so different…. Both Haas and Hahn and Southan believe that the world needs art, and that they are going to provide the world with some kind of art. I feel that they go about it in different ways. Of course painting and writing are very different but there is one that seems more genuine. Haas and Hahn are going out of their way to make paintings that people will love and that will make people happy compared to Southan would is just writing a dark comedy and hopes that the people who read it get joy from it. Don’t get me wrong they are both works of art but I think that the mural painting gives back to the community more that the writing would. But at the same time, I feel like it’s the way that you look at the art and value it. Another connection that I made while brainstorming was that the EA’s whole saying is “donate money” and then I connected it to the murals project. The projects wouldn’t of been able to be done without the donations, and I didn’t really think of it like that in the beginning. Before I was getting the idea that the EA’s idea of helping was kind of snobby and the expectation were to high. But my thoughts have changed just a little bit. The EA was making it sound like all they wanted was people’s money, I would of definitely been more open to their ideas if they maybe went into more detail about what the money could do.
