Empathy in digital participatory artworks

In a digital era, particularly with the new emphasis on digital communications due to COVID-19, we need to enhance our creativity, confidence and resilience to handle unexpected situations. This chapter focuses on practices in creative participation and how to utilise digital channels to communicate and increase empathy and creativity in real time in different participatory contexts, such as art performance, art symposia and art events. It extends the long-term arts-based action research of Finnish artist researcher Katja Juhola and Lithuanian artist researcher Marija Griniuk. The chapter presents two case studies: socially engaged art and performance art. The first case study is the August 2020 International Socially Engaged Art Symposium, which featured international online participation for the first time. The second case study presents the performance Territory by Griniuk, realised in 2018.