SoftPowerArt: Tackling environmental and societal conflicts

Dialogical aesthetics, arts-based methods, artivism and craftivism have the potential to contribute to transformative experiences that can support the sustainability of communities. This chapter discusses the experiment titled SoftPowerArt in which nine artists in Finland explored the role of arts in enhancing well-being, human-nature connectedness and mitigating the further marginalisation of people and communities in the shadow of local and global social and environmental conflicts. The assessment methodology of the experiment was unstructured focus group discussions involving nine lead artists. Artworks produced in the SoftPowerArt experiment employed reflection, interpretation and analysis of dialogical art and arts-based environmental conflict mediation, contributing to new visual, embodied and reflective approaches to policy discussion. Artistic processes facilitated consciousness of core values, meaning and purpose of life, encouraged participants to recognise their connectedness with non-human nature and enhanced their understanding of natural elements as sentient beings. This kind of engagement with the visual arts can help people to further develop their awareness, empathy, compassion and sense of empowerment. This chapter informs further development of art-driven practice to influence policy-making.