Collaborative Social Challenge Project: The SDGs, Beautiful Trouble and Culture Jamming

This blog post will introduce my initial understanding of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the distinct link they present between the concepts of Beautiful Trouble and Culture Jamming.

Admittedly, before this week, I'd never even come across the SDGs. However, I've soon learnt the term refers towards a collection of 17 broad objectives, proposed by the UN, which propose a call towards universal action, peace and prosperity. Essentially, for the UN, the collection of goals as a whole serve as a blueprint towards sustainable futures on Earth. (Figure 1) The SDGs were introduced in 2015, as well as a 15 year plan to be reached as part of the UNs 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This fact struck more than any I've discovered this week. As it is, the world is far from achieving the optimistic, utopian ideals proposed by the UN. 

Figure 1: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

However, despite this reality check, I've began to learn that knowing this fact is an essential part of the SDGs and the motive of the UN. It's began to make me think about the huge gaps between reality and the goals themselves. In particular, on a personal level, goal number five, Gender Equality. I started to consider my association with feminism, it's importance to me and my daily life. As it would seem, the universal goals have started to make me consider the importance of action, change, urgency and global collaboration. 

Learning about the SDGs has heavily influenced my previous understandings of the concepts Beautiful Trouble and Culture Jamming. I knew Beautiful Trouble had a lot to do with activism, however readings the principles set out in Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution, I've been completely enlightened to the concepts diverse meaning. It would seem, the oxymoron refers to the radical, yet beautiful, act of creative protest. Creativity is described as a superpower towards engaging with art and politics. Some principles for constructing Beautiful Trouble which stood out for me are: Find the sweet spot between anger and integrity, Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! and Making the invisible visible. In other words, combining art with the political is about the power of the peaceful, the creative mind and exposing the hidden through visual. Hence, overall, learning more about the concept of Beautiful Trouble has opened my eyes to a practice which can be used to contribute towards the progression of the UNs SDGs. Most importantly, it could be argued, such goals cannot be reached without the power of art as a tool for mass engagement. 

The significance of the SDGs has been further highlighted through learning about the practice of Culture Jamming. Arguably a form of Beautiful Trouble itself, Culture Jamming typically seeks to target the 'status quo' through art, as a form of anti-capitalist politics. Reading Mark Dery's work, to my understanding, Culture Jamming stems from a collective anxiety towards the ever developing mass media culture. From TV to social media, everyones somehow conforming to the media and its manipulative, capitalist ways. However, the role of the Culture Jammer is to disrupt us from (as Dery puts it) 'technoculture', creating art that actively 'intrudes' the messages produced by the media conglomerates' adverts, newscasts and billboards. I particularly liked Dery's use of the metaphor 'hall of media mirrors' to describe our 'hyperreality'. This made me understand the Culture Jammer to be someone attempting to shatter these mirrors through art.

Importantly, understanding Culture Jamming made me think of examples which draw upon the SDGs. As I'm most struck by goal number 5, Gender Equality, I had a look online for some examples of Feminist Culture Jamming. (Figure 2) I came across this image depicting a Fiat billboard advertisement from 1982. 

Figure 2: Fiat Feminist Culture Jamming

This image presents an important example of Culture Jamming as a tool for Feminism, imposing and exposing the workings of the Fiats resort to the sexism and, ultimately, female oppression. It just goes to show that despite the term not even having been coined, women were resorting to Culture Jamming as a form of artistic protest. I love this image as I feel it as fits as an example of Beautiful Trouble; a peaceful yet radical, humorous yet revolutionary approach to protesting the world through art.

To conclude, this week I have learnt a lot about the SDGs and their significance as well as the importance of Beautiful Trouble and Culture Jamming as possible agents for change. I'm looking forward to discovering more examples of both concepts.

Having said this, I do have some negative opinions of the SDGs and the very broad nature of the objectives. I understand the goals are broad because they ultimately seek to speak to the entire globe, however I do think the absence of mental health on the list poses a problem. In my opinion, its absence only adds to its stigma as an extension of (goal number 3) our 'good' physical health. In this light, the broad nature of the SDGs is at risk of hiding and oppressing the action towards universal notions of health. Hence, I feel it is important to discuss and interpret the SDGs in great detail as to avoid discarding issues that are just as significant.



By Ellie Ingham.



References:

1)  Sustainable Development Goals, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/

2) Andrew Boyd (Editor) and Dave Oswald Mitchell (Editor), Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution (Between the Lines, Toronto, Ontario, 2014). 

3) Mark Dery, Culture Jamming Part 1: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs, Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance (NYU Press, 2017).

4) Lucy Brownson, Spray it Loud: Feminist Culture Jamming in the 1980s, published August 26th, 2021 https://womenslibrary.org.uk/2021/08/26/spray-it-loud-feminist-culture-jamming-in-the-1980s/