Centuries ago, Japanese artisans began mending broken vessels with lacquer and gold. This tradition – called kintsugi (“golden seams”) or kintsukuroi (“golden repair”) – honors beauty in imperfection and remains a living practice today.
When Groups Divide, Art Can Unite
Why do people gather?
Sometimes it’s to find comfort, meaning, or identity. Sometimes it’s to shut others out. Movements that feed on fear and disdain can turn the human need to ‘belong’ against us.
But the arts offer us something better.
At their best, the arts are bridges across difference, mirrors for self-understanding, and containers for belonging that don’t require an enemy.
Here’s how:
Shared Meaning
Theater, music, and dance create rituals of collective identity. When a multiethnic audience weeps together for a story of exile, they’re building empathy – together.
“With a Little Help from My Friends” from The Beatles’ 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was an anthem of mutual support and communal resilience.
Identity Repair
The arts give voice to pain that exclusion exploits. Community murals, ancestral stories, or personal poems can restore worth where shame once ruled.
The MENding Monologues at University of California, San Diego was a performance series that reframed masculinity through vulnerability and storytelling.
Consciousness Building
Art exposes the mechanisms that divide us. James Baldwin’s writing didn’t just oppose racism – it revealed how we’re entangled in it. Art slows down the process of judgment and accelerates recognition.
A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, “The Fire Next Time” galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement.
Experimental Belonging
Artistic spaces like street theater or community choirs show how we can shape identity together, without erasing our differences. Making something together can matter more than agreeing on everything.
“Dammi” (2023) by Yann Demange is an experimental short film. It unfolds diasporic identity and homesickness through poetic visuals, sound and memory – revealing how longing shapes an inner sense of belonging.
Interruptions to Hate
Art invites ambiguity, surprise, beauty – things rigid ideologies can’t contain. Sometimes a mural, a dance, or a vulnerable song is the only voice that speaks across hostile lines.
Shepard Fairey’s iconic “We the People” (2017) portrait of a Muslim woman in an American flag hijab confronts rising xenophobia with dignity and defiance. It interrupts hate with a call to see each other fully.
This is how art mends us:
- A neighborhood mural painted by many hands.
- A stage where former extremists share their stories.
- A classroom where kids ask, “Who am I without my group?”
Where fear says close the circle, art says open it wider.
A Gentle Prompt
What groups shaped you – for better or worse? What art helped you see yourself or “the other” differently?
Tell me. I’d love to know.
Together in imagination,
Randall White
Abbetuck
This piece builds on three earlier explorations of belonging through the arts:
- “When the Arts are the Enemy“
- “Belonging and Exclusion: How the Arts Shape Our Place in the World“
- “Art, Identity, and the Search for Belonging“
See also our June 23, 2025, blog post:
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