Communicating Social and Political Issues Through Art

   The sources for week 10 are all connected to the arts, music, literature, and film. These sources give a representation of how art can be used to communicate serious issues. The source
“Now more than ever, we wish we had these lost Octavia Butler novels” discusses how Octavia Butler, a well known black Sci-Fi author used her books to send messages about the effects of mass incarceration, global warming, racism, violence, and feminism. Octavia Butler's book The Parable of the Sower was a story of a young girl named Lauran, who has "hyper empathy". The novel is told through Lauren's diary, which holds an entirely accurate prediction of America in thirty years, including mentioning a scarcity of clean water and a president promising to make America great again. The following sources explore how artists use music and media to spread the data supporting climate change, protesting big industries destroying Native land, fighting for clean water in communities of color, and more. From the sources, “ This Song is Composed from 133 Years of Climate Change Data”, “Using music to fight climate change and advocate for renewable future”, “Stand Up/Stand N Rock”#NODAPL”, and “Trouble in the Water” you can see the different mediums used to reach different crowds. The usage of music and fictional literature to bring attention to important causes is something that people should consider using. When reading books such as Octavia Butlers, it does not automatically cross your mind that the things being discussed in a fictional book, are actually happening in the real world. It was very interesting to see how Butler incorporated two things that she was passionate about into one and she was able to make predictions of the future through her fiction. Another source that moved e and caused a stir of feelings was the article and video “ This Song is Composed from 133 Years of Climate Change Data”. Reading how much thought was put in to make the exponential growth in climate change data more obvious was very surprising. I was surprised at the fact that there is so much data to prove the existence of climate change that they could compose an entire song, but people still deny its existence. It was very new to hear climate data in the form of musical instruments. You could hear the Earth warming and the regions are affected the most. VOCAB: Parable- a story used to teach lessons or principles.

Rock Strata- layers of sedimentary or igneous rock in the earths surface.

Manuscripts- text handwritten by an author