Art and Resistance: An Interview (original) (raw)
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In discussing various forms of struggles, three different types of injustices are highlighted and related to subjectivity and the arts. It is argued that in neoliberal societies these struggles and injustices have become intertwined to the degree that agentic socio-subjectivity is no longer experienced or conceptualized. Admitting that art embodies neo-liberal contradictions and often supports the status quo, the possibilities and limitations of aesthetics are reflected. Arts’ critical agenda of addressing power and resistance is portrayed through examples regarding economic-political injustices and injustices of representation, recognition, interaction, and subjectification in the visual and performing arts. Aesthetic conditions for the possibility of resistance in the arts are presented with the conclusion that street art may be a better candidate for challenging the status quo than traditional art. It is argued that aesthetics is an area of life that provides sources for fighting injustices.
Mind the trap: Street art, visual literacy, and visual resistance
2018
Street art is used in political contexts by both powerful players and resistance movements. To understand how images make meaning and are constantly being negotiated between rule and resistance, a visual literacy must be fostered. I have therefore introduced an interdisciplinary methodology for critical visual analysis that allows for the differentiated examination of images in the interplay of rule and resistance and considers the specific features of street art. This analytical framework aims to foster a cross-fertilization between visual culture and political science and more specifically, International Relations.
The Aesthetics of Global Protest
2019
Protestors across the world use aesthetics in order to communicate their ideas and ensure their voices are heard. This book looks at protest aesthetics, which we consider to be the visual and performative elements of protest, such as images, symbols, graffiti, art, as well as the choreography of protest actions in public spaces. Through the use of social media, protestors have been able to create an alternative space for people to engage with politics that is more inclusive and participatory than traditional politics. This volume focuses on the role of visual culture in a highly mediated environment and draws on case studies from Europe, Thailand, South Africa, USA, Argentina, and the Middle East in order to demonstrate how protestors use aesthetics to communicate their demands and ideas. It examines how digital media is harnessed by protestors and argues that all protest aesthetics are performative and communicative.
Introduction: The Aesthetics of Global Protest : Visual Culture and Communication
The Aesthetics of Global Protest, 2019
Protest movements are struggles to be seen and to be heard. In the last 60 years protest movements around the world have mobilized against injustices and inequalities to bring about substantial sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic changes. Whilst familiar repertoires of action persist, such as strikes, demonstrations, and occupations of public space, the landscape is very different from 60 years ago when the so-called 'new social movements' emerged. We need to take stock of the terrain of protest movements, including dramatic developments in digital technologies and communication, the use of visual culture by protestors, and the expression of democracy. This chapter introduces the volume and explains how aesthetics of protest are performative and communicative, constituting a movement through the performance of politics.
Art as Counterpublics. Modes of Resistance in Contemporary Culture.
Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, 2019
This article discusses the art projects, which fulfill the function of counterpublics, which I understand, following Nancy Fraser, Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt, as a critique of the polit ical institutions, which also undermines the public/private divide. Some recent artistic productions in Poland have generated such forms of critique and resistance, allowing voices and demands of various oppressed minorities not only to be represented, but also to enter and initiate public de bates and transform the modes of contestation. They imply another resistance and critique, which overcome the heroic modes of articulation, thus enacting the weak, marginalized and ordinary as political agency.
The Aesthetics of Creative Activism: Introduction
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2023
In this introduction to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism special issue on the aesthetics of creative activism, we canvas influential scholarship of political aesthetics to sculpt a broad typology of six interconnected mechanisms by which art might intervene in the world. We label these: Documentation, Disruption, Recognition, Participation, Imagination, and Beauty. Each has a compelling tradition of theory and application, augmented, extended, and sometimes challenged by the thirteen fresh and provocative contributions in the special issue. Yet, we ask, if both politically minded artists and culturally minded activists are convinced of the power of art to provoke social change, and if we live a world that by almost all measures is now saturated with politically inclined, aesthetically informed practices, interfaces, objects, and texts, why does art not seem to be making a difference? Clearly, we need to think harder about the relationships between art and action, a task the articles assembled here call upon us to take seriously.