Reflecting on the environments in which we find ourselves living, working, educating, and studying can reveal to us our own sense of agency, as well as clarify areas in our lives where we may or may not have impact on our surroundings. Applying this towards spaces in which we feel an inability to express our sense of individuality, creativity, and communication can highlight for our communities areas of culture which may need further development. Are all voices heard in every space? Should every voice be heard in every space, and if not, which ones are required for executing impact or change? It is important that individuals first reflect on their environments in order to more adequately identify where and what types of impacts could be undertaken in improving their communities. In our Lab, lessons were conducted in various institutionalized spaces and, whether directly or indirectly, we asked our guests to reflect on their own personal relationship with similar surroundings as well as the symbolic nature of common academic surroundings. This could mean reflecting on the sense of agency in a large institutional concert hall or how it feels to speak about artistic ideals while gathered in an academic senate room. These types of exercises were designed to make the individual question, identify, and perhaps even categorize the spaces in which their careers and lives take place and whether certain environments either support or ignore their individual sense of agency. During the collaboration day, participants were asked directly whether their artistic activities integrate socio-political issues which are present in their communities.
A collaborative Autoethnographic method was applied to small groups for attempting to answer such a broad question. Collaborative Autoethnography embraces diversity of perspectives around a central issue. The goal in our attempt was not to stimulate consensus amongst individuals from various higher education institutions, but instead to use our differences to generate a prism of perspectives, allowing the complexity of discussions around art and society to be more clearly mapped for further individual investigation. In doing so, collaboration can help reveal to us where our individual concerns are already focused, solidifying our sense of self and agency. By seeing the self in the context of the others, not arguing for our perspective, but contextualizing it, we develop a better understanding for what types of social impact we as individuals wish to carry out.