Art is born from surrender, not control. While opinions about art come from privilege and position, creation emerges from vulnerability and courage — it’s time critics Photography: Vinta Nanda aside, writes Vinta Nanda. 

In today’s era of digital deluge and creative democratisation, independent cinema and alternative art forms are redefining boundaries. The relationship between critics and creators is shifting as power decentralises. Artistic expression, once controlled by opinion leaders and industry gatekeepers, now flourishes freely through social media, streaming platforms, and accessible tools of creation. This piece by Nanda explores how art thrives through empathy, surrender, and experimentation, while opinions often emerge from authority and bias. She argues that in this new age of content overflow, storytelling, music, and filmmaking, only those who create can truly critique — and that the era of the passive critic is coming to a natural end.

The Distance Between Opinion and Creation

Having an opinion about art and making art are poles apart. One is an act of assertion; the other, an act of surrender. Opinions often come from a place of power — position, influence, and the ability to make or break. Creation, on the other hand, emerges from a state of powerlessness. The best art has always come from those who have nothing to lose, only something to express.

When we say independent cinema is a spirit, not a genre, we refer to this exact essence — a spirit of immersion, exploration, listening, understanding, and experimentation. It’s about courage in uncertainty, about losing oneself in the act of discovery. Exploration leads to adventure in unknown places. Listening is an act of surrender, a belief in someone else’s truth. Understanding grows out of empathy, even for those we disagree with. Experimentation requires audacity — the bravery to break from the known and leap into the unknown.

Across centuries, art has often been misunderstood in its time. From Van Gogh’s paintings to Guru Dutt’s films, from Kafka’s prose to Ray’s later works — many were dismissed when they appeared. Their brilliance was often recognised only after the noise of public opinion had faded.

The reason is simple: opinions, when detached from creative empathy, lack the capacity to perceive what art is trying to become.

The Spirit of Independence and the Fall of Gatekeepers

Independent art — whether film, music, or literature — has always been a conversation between courage and vulnerability. It refuses to conform to the structures that define mainstream acceptance. Yet, the fate of such art has historically been dictated by those who neither explore nor surrender: critics, marketers, and audiences conditioned by habit.

Today, the ecosystem has changed. Technology has dissolved the boundaries between artist and audience. Filmmakers shoot on phones, musicians record in bedrooms, writers publish without publishers. Accessibility to tools and platforms has decentralised creativity. Mentorship, once the cornerstone of artistic evolution, has been replaced by experimentation and peer learning. We live in a time when art comes from everywhere, not just from institutions or industry systems.

This shift has exposed the diminishing role of opinion leaders and critics. In the era of content floods, where stories are being told by millions simultaneously, no singular opinion can dictate success or failure. The sheer audacity of expression unleashed online is overwhelming the once-dominant structures of control. It’s like glaciers melting — uncontrollable, unstoppable — turning into rivers of song, story, and cinema that carve new paths, crushing every thoughtless edifice of gatekeeping that tries to stall their flow.

When this creative deluge hits, critics cannot stand on the sidelines, holding umbrellas of opinion. They must swim — or risk being swept away. The old world of validation and marketing, once guided by a handful of powerful voices, is collapsing. The question now is not who gets to speak, but who dares to listen, and who continues to create. 

The Critic’s Crossroads: To Create or to Fade

It is often said that artists are born critics. Every brushstroke, every line of dialogue, every melody is a self-critique — a negotiation between what was imagined and what was achieved. But the reverse is rarely true: critics, unless they engage with the act of creation, remain observers of other people’s courage. 

This asymmetry has defined centuries of misunderstanding. Critics have too often become the first and heaviest barrier to entry — determining worth through their own frameworks, often blind to the deeper surrender that creation demands.

Art, especially independent cinema, thrives on the willingness to fail, to be vulnerable, to explore without assurance. Criticism, when detached from creation, seeks to define, classify, and contain — the very opposite of what art intends.

But this imbalance is now collapsing. In the streaming age, where storytelling no longer waits for permission, the authority of the critic is fading. The audience, diverse and self-assured, no longer looks for approval; it looks for resonance. A song may go viral not because it is perfect, but because it is human. A short film may move millions not because a critic endorsed it, but because it spoke truth. In this democratised landscape, critics who wish to stay relevant must evolve from commentators to collaborators — from judges to participants.

The new critic must create — must write original works, film, compose, or at least immerse themselves in the vulnerability of creation. Only then can their words carry the insight that art deserves. Otherwise, it’s time to gracefully step aside and let the flood of new voices reshape the landscape.

The clouds of creation have burst, and from every corner of the world, rivers of expression are flowing freely. It is not a time for gatekeeping but for gratitude — gratitude for being able to witness this surge. Critics, once the custodians of taste, now face a choice: evolve by engaging in the act of making, or dissolve quietly into irrelevance.

Because in the end, art doesn’t need their approval. It only needs participation of those willing to take the plunge.