For our last full week of class, we focused on art’s ability to influence social movements. Art is extremely multifaceted, which makes it the perfect tool for communicating values, drawing interest, and motivating community members to take part or join a movement. A more simple work can easily and quickly communicate a paramount message. Complicated artworks can invoke fierce or profound emotions in a viewer and force them to look at issues, that they may have found trivial before, differently. The resources necessary to create art are practically accessible to everyone. This is significant because it grants people the opportunity to publicly question hegemonic ideals and guidelines.
The wide array of art forms give everyone with some form of expression or style; people of different interests, origins, ages, and values. With such a variety of approaches, art provides movements with a means of connection with outside communities. By connecting with these outsiders through art, movements can attempt to shift or transform the outsider’s frame of reference or analysis in which they use to look at a movement, view an issue, or feel about a social concern. This concept was highlighted in our course when Kathy had us take part in a group activity about music. Each class group picked a contemporary song that related to protest and wrote up three words that represented the primary focuses of that song up on the board. Every group chose a hip hop or R&B track, many of which had similar messages and intentions. The activity allowed us to physically see what social issues are dominating our society today and highlighted how art’s versatility provides movements with a means of granting people a greater understanding and accessibility to a cause. 
