Why We Make Art When the World Burns

Mesma Belsaré
Jun 23
4 min read

Updated: Jul 7

Why We Make Art When the World Burns? Artist Mesma Belsaré reflects on art's essential role during crisis, exploring how creative expression serves as documentation, resistance, and shared humanity rather than frivolous escape.

A fellow artist recently confided their struggle with continuing to create while everything around us feels like it's crumbling. It came from someone whom I sincerely admire for their commitment to the work. It forced me to think. The concern hung in the air like smoke, demanding an answer I wasn't sure I could conjure in the moment. As artists here we are, mixing pigments and planning dance performances while headlines scream of wars, climate disasters, and ‘democracy under siege’. Was I just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic with better lighting?

The truth is, I've been asking myself the same question since I immigrated to the United States. Every time I reached for my brushes during moments of crisis such as after 9/11, during the 2008 financial collapse, through the pandemic and watching global wars unfold, this question persisted. But here's what I've learned from years of making art through uncertainty: that art isn't the luxury we indulge in when everything is fine. It's the medicine we need most when everything is broken.

The Dangerous Myth of "Frivolous" Art

There's this persistent idea that art is a kind of elaborate hobby for those who don't have "real" problems. It's a convenient narrative that keeps art safely contained in galleries and concert halls, away from the messy business of survival.

I grew up in a family of scientists. When I quit medical school to attend Delhi College of Art, my own parents accepted this radical decision and extended their support. But the collective gasp of many was audible from a few time zones away! The message was clear: in a world full of problems, art was self-indulgent escapism.

But that narrative crumbles the moment you look at what artists actually do during crises. During the Russia-Ukraine war, artists didn't stop painting. They bore witness. Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko's works were evacuated from museums like refugees because even in wartime, people understood that losing cultural memory is another kind of death. Picasso painted the “Guernica” not in response to a walk around a lily pond, but to the bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica by Nazi warplanes!

Through times of extreme unrest, it is not just politicians and journalists who tell the story. It is also the artists, the poets, the musicians who capture what it feels like to hope and fear simultaneously. Art becomes proof that the human spirit can persist even when institutions fail.

Art as Evidence

When I paint or dance, I'm not trying to make pretty pictures or show off my technical skills. Like many artists of our time, I am creating evidence that we were here, that we struggled, that we found beauty even in the midst of chaos. Every brushstroke is a small act of defiance against our erasure.

My Swayamsiddhā series, i..e. paintings of women who claim power through their own realization, didn't emerge despite the current political climate. It emerged because of it. The Siddhāyikā Yakshi I'm working on, inspired by the carved figure at Ellora, embodies a stillness that refuses to be shaken. In a world that feels increasingly unhinged, that kind of unshakeable presence isn't decorative. It is necessary. It's a reminder that humans have always found ways to remain centered in chaos.

There's something almost absurdly hopeful about mixing paints when the news is apocalyptic. It's like insisting on having good table manners during an earthquake. It might seem pointless, but somehow to me it feels essential to maintaining our humanity.

I think about this every time I stand in my studio, surrounded by half-finished canvases while my phone wants me to pay attention to the latest catastrophe. The act of continuing to create feels both ridiculous and defiant. It's saying: "Yes, everything is terrible, but I'm still going to try to make something beautiful because that's what my ancestors did in spite of their challenges."

This isn't denial. It's radical stubbornness. It's the same impulse that makes people plant gardens during wartime or compose symphonies in concentration camps. It's not that we don't see the darkness; it's that we refuse to let darkness be the only story.

Our shared humanity

When I dance, I'm not just executing technical movements, as I previously stated. I'm creating a temporary space where strangers can experience something together. Whether it is grief, joy, recognition or surprise or even dislike for my dancing. In those moments, the artificial divisions between us become permeable. Art does this better than almost anything else. It bypasses our intellectual defenses and speaks directly to something more fundamental. This isn't sentimental fluff. It's survival technology. In times of crisis, we need reminders of our shared humanity more than ever. Art provides that reminder by making the invisible visible, by giving form to experiences that feel too big or too painful for words.

The Counterintuitive Courage of Creation

Making art during uncertain times requires a particular kind of courage; not the heroic kind that gets headlines, but the quiet, stubborn kind that shows up day after day. It's the courage to believe that beauty matters when everything suggests it doesn't, that the future exists when the present seems bleak.

Every time I pick up a brush or step onto a stage, I'm making a bet on tomorrow. I'm saying that someone, somewhere, will need what I'm making. That connection is possible. That meaning can be found or created even in the midst of chaos. So when people ask why I'm still making art when everything is falling apart, I want to say: This is exactly when we need art most. Not as escape, but as evidence. Not as decoration, but as defiance. Not as luxury, but as the most human thing we can do. To insist on creating beauty in the face of destruction, to bear witness with our whole selves, to plant seeds in the ruins and water them with our sweat and tears of creative labor.

The world will keep burning. We'll keep creating. And somehow, that's not a contradiction. That's the point.

-Mesma

This piece sparked from conversations with fellow artists about purpose and persistence. I'm always curious to hear how other creators navigate these questions—and how collectors choose work that speaks to uncertain times.