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Arts and culture have always been ideal vessels for expressing our humanity. When we want to conjure up the most appropriate ways to convey feelings about this thing called life (shout out to Prince, peace be upon him), we play music. We paint. We dance. We sing. We sculpt. We practice our rituals. Ultimately, we tell our story of navigating existence…and it makes us feel good in our hearts, our minds, our spirits and our bodies. Creative energy is explicitly tied to health and wellbeing.
What do we find in the stories told through arts and culture? Well, we find much diversity in thought, perspective, philosophy and experience. The characters and settings are as vast as this planet, and they remind us that every person’s journey is unique to them. Like snowflakes falling in the winter, no two people’s lives are the same. However, amongst the near-infinite spectrum of existential paths, we identify common themes. I’ll go so far as to say these themes are more than common, they are omnipresent. The desire for acknowledgement, appreciation, respect, understanding and love is engrained in every life story, and therefore in every artistic and cultural manifestation. Those desires, and our pursuit of them, are what make us human.
So why, given the ties that bind us together, are so many convinced that some of our fellow human beings are fundamentally different? How have generations of people been compelled to demonstrate the worst of humanity, under the premise that those subject to suffering are not even human? It goes to show how powerful storytelling is as an art, science and strategy, because it speaks to one of our critical elements. Humanity craves connection, and whether it is a person, image, or ideology, we gravitate towards that which makes us feel like we belong. As past and present history teaches us, that is problematic when connections are grounded in the dehumanization of others. The manifestations of stories based on dehumanizing women, People of Color, the differently-abled, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with lesser means result in inequitable policies, programs, resources, infrastructure and support that are detrimental to the entire world. The voices of the people, and Earth itself, are growing and they cry out, “where are our stories, where are our truths?” We must reject the myth of the zero-sum game because it only expedites the deterioration of all life.
Salzburg Global Seminar has been a platform for storytelling on a worldwide platform for over 70 years, and I am honored that our narratives are forever intertwined. The first moment I encountered Salzburg Global was in 2015 when I was a third-year Johns Hopkins doctoral student. I was unsure of my purpose for being there, especially considering I was focusing more on public health research than arts and culture at the time. But once I was in the space of excellence, joy, curiosity and compassion, I knew it was meant to reveal myself to this international collective. Perhaps then I was able to show someone that a young Black man from Baltimore was more than what the prevailing narratives suggested. I know that is what I do now, and this latest moment with Salzburg Global during our program Reimagining Human and Planetary Flourishing was an opportunity to continue empowering others to elevate themselves for personal and societal growth. I am grateful that I was again elevated, and my health is better for it. Who we are is exactly what the world needs right now, and we already have the perfect language to use. Arts and culture bridge divides, re-humanizes and reminds us of the heart of the matter: the world changes with love. Evolve and revolutionize with love.
David Olawuyi Fakunle is CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME: Enrichment Through the African Oral Tradition, Associate Faculty, Department of Mental Health Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine.