--- title: Why Art is the Antidote for Our Times description: While we live at a time when division is the norm; when biases and beliefs seem static and immobile; when hard science is debatable; when... canonical: https://time.com/5523770/seeing-the-bright-side/ author: Ava DuVernay article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-07T11:19:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:22:04.917Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why Art is the Antidote for Our Times og:description: While we live at a time when division is the norm; when biases and beliefs seem static and immobile; when hard science is debatable; when... og:url: https://time.com/5523770/seeing-the-bright-side/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Art is the Antidote for Our Times twitter:description: While we live at a time when division is the norm; when biases and beliefs seem static and immobile; when hard science is debatable; when... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why Art is the Antidote for Our Times > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=9f863a38-b184-411c-8d01-1e9849794ea4&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Ava Duvernay: "Every day there's at least one thing I find to be optimistic about" [Watch (HLS stream): Ava Duvernay: "Every day there's at least one thing I find to be optimistic about"](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Y3SEjDbp.m3u8) (1:26)  _Published 2019-02-06. TIME's 2019 Optimists Issue guest editor Ava Duvernay on her inspiration for the issue, and what makes her optimistic._ by [Ava DuVernay](https://time.com/author/ava-duvernay/) ## Ava DuVernay Feb 7, 2019 11:19 AM UTC by [Ava DuVernay](https://time.com/author/ava-duvernay/) ## Ava DuVernay Feb 7, 2019 11:19 AM UTC While we live at a time when division is the norm; when biases and beliefs seem static and immobile; when hard science is debatable; when journalism is devalued; when humanity is stripped from those in cells, centers and shelters; when it’s all just too much to organize in our heads, art calls to the optimism within us and beckons us to breathe. When I was invited to guest-edit this issue, TIME’s second special issue devoted to optimism, it was on a particularly dreary day. The national headlines were what we’ve come to expect: bigotry, poverty, injustice, trauma, trouble. I weighed my own feelings of despair and doubt against the idea of reveling in an experience dedicated to optimism. The choice was easy. I wanted to explore the other side. And so, working on this issue with the stellar team at TIME helped me to remember a simple truth: that prioritizing hope whenever possible is a brave and bold thing to do. In that way, this issue is a gift to me, a necessary reminder to grasp joy with both arms and embrace it like a great love. In these pages, we explore not only the idea of optimism but its representation. The literal visibility of the proverbial bright side. To me, that is the job of art. To meet us where we are and to invite us in–to think, to feel, to wonder, to dream, to debate, to laugh, to resist, to roam, to imagine. Art is worthy of our interrogation and is in fact an antidote for our times. For the vital moment comes when we each must understand that the social, political and historical connectedness born of traumatic experiences can and should transform to true, elongated engagement with one another. Engagement not steeped in fear and separation, but in shared knowledge, recognition and contentment. Art instigates all of this. In the issue, we celebrate and suggest ways that one can find inspiration in our present moment through the work of artists who carve a path for us all. Whether a filmmaker or a photographer, an author or an actress, a poet or a painter, these pages are filled with people who use art as a weapon for dynamic optimism. When we pivot from the perils of politics and power to the blade of grass, the note of music, the line of a novel, the expression on the screen, we breathe deeply and are revived. As the gifted theologian Howard Thurman once wrote: “Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.” Our goal here is for you to luxuriate in that lurking as we present the idea of optimism, hopeful progress and radical change through the appreciation of art. Onward, Ava DuVernay, Guest Editor _To explore the Optimists issue,_ [_click here._](http://time.com/optimists-2019) ## Transcript Everyday there's at least one thing that I find to be optimistic about, and it's not even hard. There wasn't even a question about guest editing the Optimist issue when I was asked to do it. It's one of those things where you think, are you sure you called me? But once I'm sure, I delved into it and it's been just an experience filled with joy. When I was first talking with you, and I said I wanted it to be optimism through art, I just loved how quickly you embraced it and just said yes to almost everything I asked. [ LAUGH ] Everyone needs a man like that. [ LAUGH ] I really Love, consuming, drinking in the creativity and imagination of other people. It's like fuel to me, like fire, like food. A beautiful picture or a movie, or if you walk past a beautiful building, or you see a flower in someone's hand that's been arranged in a beautiful way. These are all art practice So art doesn't have to behind wells, it's the way that we're living creatively in our own lives and the way that we're taking in all of the images around us in the day. You know when I saw- What? [ LAUGH ] My god, [ LAUGH ] That's awesome. [ LAUGH ] What is going on? I don't know, man, I want in, I don't know what it is. 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