ALU-SOC: Art as a Creative Engine for Fostering Social Sensitivity

COOPERATION BETWEEN SOCIAL WORK AND FINE ARTS Social topics and issues of the position of vulnerable groups in society form the focus of interest of social work as a scientific discipline and applied profession. In connection with this, the issues of human rights, social solidarity, social cohesion, equality and inequality in society, as well as many others, are thematized within social work. In finding an answer to the question of how to extract these topics from ... Read More

COOPERATION BETWEEN SOCIAL WORK AND FINE ARTS

Social topics and issues of the position of vulnerable groups in society form the focus of interest of social work as a scientific discipline and applied profession. In connection with this, the issues of human rights, social solidarity, social cohesion, equality and inequality in society, as well as many others, are thematized within social work. In order to find an answer to the question of how to extract these topics from the domain of residual or sensationalist, and sometimes purely humanitarian discourse, a group of teachers and students from the Study Center for Social Work, the Faculty of Law and the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Zagreb began cooperation in 2016 with the aim of connecting these two areas and finding common points of interest. It did not take long to determine that the area of common interest is huge and that artistic, especially visual expression, can not only stimulate a wider social interest in social topics, but artists have been doing it in their own way, more than actively, over the centuries. It can be said that a certain social engagement of artists was a feature of the majority, with topics related to the position of the disadvantaged often appearing as an incentive
social groups such as the poor, the homeless, people with disabilities,
children without adequate parental care, the elderly and infirm, and many others. The need to promote a broader social interest in the position of people from these social groups, and thus to promote their rights to a dignified life and the protection of human rights, requires a dedicated, and often creative approach to encouraging attention on the part of those who otherwise do not understand or simply do not want to understand the importance of these topics. The potentials of fine arts open up completely new spaces of communication for helpers, social workers, both in direct work and relationships with users, as well as with all those groups around them, some of which permanently and strongly influence their everyday lives. Verbal communication translated into various techniques of helping that professional helpers have, such as counseling, mediation or psychotherapy, often face significant limits, and this is where the need and possibility of expanding the range of techniques within which art and artistic expression have a special value is opened. As has already been shown in some previously implemented projects that have experimented with the use of art in social work and helping activities in general, art has its application not only in the processes of raising awareness of the community about the position of vulnerable social groups, but it has been proven to have the potential to achieve direct effects in the processes of helping. Examples of different types of so-called "art therapy" techniques in the work of professional helpers are well known.

Encouraged by such experiences, as well as previous cooperation within this project, called by the easily memorable acronym "ALU-SOC", the door has been opened to future forms of cooperation in several directions. In addition to activities aimed at the wider public with the aim of encouraging social sensitivity, the cooperation between these two faculties can be upgraded by launching joint courses within which further possibilities of knowledge transfer and techniques specific to each of the fields would be explored. This, of course, opens up opportunities for cooperation with others, both within the arts and within the social sciences and humanities of the University of Zagreb and other universities.

Prof. Nino Žganec, Ph.D. Nino Žganec