Eleanor Heartney: Question ourselves and think about issues in today’s society!!

Eleanor Heartney, is a successful art critique who’s trying to draw everybody’s attention to their personal behavior and reconsider the issue of humanity and individualism. Also, she thinks that art can break down the borders and has the potential to point out the issues that we are dealing with those days. 

Heartney is optimistic, and this has been demonstrated throughout the 90 minutes zoom discussion with her. She thinks we do have the power to fix all the issues when we consider our positions in history, in religion, and to each other. In her book Doomsday Dreams, Heartney brought up the concept of “everything then starts all over again” This concept has appeared in many religions. She thinks it is important for all human beings to reconsider the issue and imaging our relationship with others and to history. And she likes to explore the idea of repairing the Earth (environmental issues) and also our jobs on Earth. To repair things, we need an alternative: ways to interact with the environment. We should all think about the questions of: who we are and where we are.

From the discussion, Heartney continuously circles back to the idea that we need to find or think about alternative ways. Heartney says, “We need to think about our connection to the earth and connections to each other, and be able to find answers that we are not able to find right now.” I totally agree with her. As we consider those questions, we will gradually find or retrieve the humanity and individualism that we are supposed to have. Looking at the issues from an alternative way, we may find an answer that can be totally different from what we already have in mind, and it can probably lead new ideas into mind. We should “see ourselves being part of this nature”We can be more focused on the issues that contribute to our lives those days. Then we can start thinking about what we should do to fix the problems. 

Heartney thinks art is somehow like laboratory ideas, and artists can try out things that seem to be far fetched and can point the way for others. Problems are system wide, and they go across the borders. There should be an agency to guide nations’ work together. And some art can create an idea of getting rid of the national border. Heartney brought up the idea that if we see something that contains a way to coordinate effects, it does hold real potential. Things can change under that effect. Heartney thinks art has the potential to show how we are dealing with those issues today. I agree with her strongly, and I think art can point out the issues that we are suffering now lead us to rethink and reconsider those issues, and possibly change it.