Artistic activism

Este libro es una versión desencorsetada y con miras a un público más amplio, de mi tesis doctoral "Tramas en lo público. Activismo artístico en La Plata desde la década de 1990 al presente" (finalizada en noviembre de 2018 y defendida en junio de 2019) para el Doctorado en Ciencias Sociales de la UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires).
El texto bucea en la relación entre prácticas estéticas y praxis política, a partir de experiencias de activismo artístico desarrolladas en o desde la ciudad de La Plata y zona de influencia, desde la década de 1990 al presente. Evidentemente, no pretendía abarcar la amplia cartografía de artistas, colectivos y prácticas en la ciudad, sino que, desde el sinuoso camino de la investigación, decidí profundizar en tres experiencias particulares:
• Las prácticas colaborativas de Ala Plástica (1991-2016),
• Los escraches a genocidas y centros clandestinos de detención de HIJOS La Plata y la Mesa de Escrache Popular (1995-2012).
• Las acciones online de LULI en torno a la desaparición de Jorge Julio López (2010-2016).

Disponible para compra on line: https://lalibreriadeedulp.mitiendanube.com/productos/habitar-confabular-crear/

The present study examines the dynamics of youth artivism -artistic activism- in selected countries of the Arab World as manifested in protest songs, produced by young singers and bands during the popular uprisings between 2010 and 2013. The study analyzes the stylistic, linguistic, and aesthetic features of protest songs, and their function as instruments employed to articulate collective defiance, grievances, and aspirations. The study, also, investigates the political engagement of young Arab protest singers in the homeland and diaspora, by analyzing their role as activist-artists in generating songs that represent an alternative national consciousness reflective of the popular masses. This national-popular consciousness is represented and documented in the protest songs accompanying the eruption of popular political contention. Central to this research is the assertion that the cultural phenomenon of Arab artivism is best understood within its social, political, and historical contexts. Presenting a critical discussion of neo-Marxist and post-Marxist approaches, the study is informed by Antonio Gramsci’s concepts of ‘hegemony’ and ‘national-popular’ in an attempt to highlight the cultural paradigm of subversive artistic activism.

This piece teases out the links between this special issue's key themes regarding performance and citizenship and the distinct realities of transitional democracies. To contribute to generating insights into other countries currently in the grip of populist political regimes, it looks at the case of the Philippines. In this context, it matters to think about the diversity of productions that can enable performances of citizenship. This is because contemporary media and communication research in the country has understandably but narrowly prioritised the toxicity of online political discourse brought about by the rise of populist political performances and political trolling. It also matters in the Philippines to think about the role of those involved in productions about performances of citizenship. This is because of the problems posed by how 'authenticity' has been hijacked by populism and has been weaponised against those who seek to critique the current political dispensation.

In Agus Dermawan T. and Astri Wright (Co-Authors), _Hendra Gunawan: A Great Modern Indonesian Painter._ ( Jakarta/Singapore: The Ciputra Foundation and the Archipelago Press, Editions  Didier Millet, 2001), pp. 39-65.  Included here, also Wright's “Preface,” pp.12-13 . Book is: 236 pp, with 133 reproductions, plus contextual photos.

We write about transformations in artistic practices accompanying the political and economic transition in Poland. We record a recent shift from a liberal and individualistic understanding of human rights to a broader vision of rights implicit in social and artistic struggles. A chapter in the book "Land of Human Rights: Artistic and Activist Strategies of Making Human Rights Visible" edited by Laila Huber, Judith Laister, Anton Lederer, Margarethe Makovec and Oliver Ressler, Graz 2009.

This research essay contributes to the special issue “Decolonizing European Colonial Heritage in Urban Spaces” by examining memory activist art projects focused on three heritage sites in Warsaw from the perspective of the “decolonial option” as conceived by Madina Tlostanova. The essay’s theoretical framework draws from memory studies and critical heritage studies by applying the notions of memory activism, heritage repression, reframing and re-emergence, and communities of implication. The empirical cases involve The Józef Rotblat Institute for Disarmament of Culture and Abolition of War (by Krzysztof Wodiczko and Jarosław Kozakiewicz, 2016); The Próżna Project (curated by Krystyna Piotrowska, 2005–12); The Footbridge Was There (by Adam X, 2007); (…) Ellipsis (by Anna Baumgart and Agnieszka Kurant, 2009); A Footbridge of Memory (by Tomasz Lec and Krzysztof Pasternak, 2011); and photographic interventions Palace LX (by Błażej Pindor, 2014) and PKiN (by Jacek Fota, 2015). In all those critical artistic projects the essay identifies a characteristic duality: not only do they address the legacies of foreign dependencies, but in addition, and with an eye on the future, seek to destabilize nation-oriented essentialist interpretations of those dependencies. The essay claims that such a dual decolonial approach constitutes a relevant critical heuristic tool for studying other cases in which the nationalistic framing of heritage and memory is the strongest decolonial response to the fall of empires and to their aftermaths.

En este texto proponemos revisar algunas acciones de activismo artístico realizadas en la ciudad de La Plata y alrededores (provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina) en los últimos años, atendiendo a las particularidades de la ciudad y los reclamos en torno a los cuales se efectuaron. Las prácticas contrahegemónicas no sólo generaron estrategias de visibilización de los reclamos, también propusieron interesantes intercambios entre el espacio público urbano (la calle) y la web.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of two artist-led collective actors, Koalition der Freien Szene (KFS) and Haben and Brauchen (H&B), and their differing strategies of
political critique towards Berlin’s cultural policy-making complex. The paper seeks to contribute to the lack of empirical case studies on Berlin’s cultural governance and cultural policy stakeholders by creating a self-designed framework for analysis of artist-led organizations’ formulation of political claims and how their articulations find entrance into policy-making.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper’s theoretical framework is situated at the intersection between new social movement studies, post-positivist policy analysis and discursive institutionalism. Methodologically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews with members of KFS, H&B and relevant cultural stakeholders from Berlin’s contemporary arts scene.

Findings – The paper identifies five differentiating axes of political critique through a self-designed framework. These include: political or constitution-like program, personnel infrastructures
determining decision-making, approach to cultural administration, strategic agenda and activity in a collective action framing scheme. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the (trans)formative
potentialities for Berlin’s future cultural policy due to complementarity of discursivity and operative action, of pragmatism and utopian thinking.

Practical implications – The practical implications of the paper provide guidance for cultural policymakers to better systematize modes of participatory policy-making.

Originality/value – This paper gives an overview of current developments and shifts in Berlin’s cultural field through the emergence of new collective actors by providing unique stakeholder-centered
perspective(s). Furthermore, through an empirically grounded, self-designed analytical framework, a systematic analysis of articulatory and communicative strategies and the practices of new cultural
policy stakeholders is provided.

Art and politics have always been two fundamental dimensions of human cultural behaviour. In the 20th century, merging the two has often resulted in the identification of art with a form of propagandistic communication. Nevertheless, what happens when the artist is politically engaged, but their art lacks representative content, unresponsive to political struggles? This situation experienced by several important figures of Minimalism after 1968 has been described by the American art critic and activist Lucy R. Lippard (1937) with the concept of dilemma. How can it reconcile an art form that refuses to carry a message with the need to communicate some artists’ endorsement of the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests? The Dilemma is precisely the title of an essay written by Lippard in 1970 and later included in the anthology Get the Message?: A Decade of Art for Social Change (Lippard, 1984). Following the author’s considerations, this paper sketches a critical confrontation between two artistic experiences involving Lucy Lippard and the Art Workers Coalition, a New Yorker artistic collective to which several Minimalists took part in the aftermath of 1968 (Bryan-Wilson, 2009). The aim is to show two possible solutions to the dilemma between art and politics, ethics and aesthetics. The first case I would like to discuss is the «Peace Show» curated by Lippard in collaboration with the painter Robert Huot and the activist Ron Wolin in October 1968 at Paula Cooper Gallery in SoHo. The exhibition’s concept is simple but insidious: important representatives of Minimalism are invited to show their contribution to the political cause against the Vietnam War with their best art; the earnings coming from the sales of the works would finance the actions of a student committee against the war. The curators believed that art which seemingly presents itself as devoid of (political) content, in the expression of its excellence and formal unity – artists such as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Barry, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold and Robert Ryman are involved – can be a powerful political statement. Nonetheless, Lippard would soon become aware that we can demand a greater commitment to artists, that is to say, organic integration of the creative process with political engagement. Following this suggestion, the second case study I propose stands on the edge between art and political communication, happening and protest action. I am referring to the My-Lay or And Babies? poster conceived by the Art Workers Coalition and used during a protest action performed in front of Picasso’s Guernica at MoMA. In this second case, the powerful collage of photographic image and word is protected by the collective anonymity, while the serial distribution eludes capitalist commodification. The parallel between these two expositive and performative experiences will highlight a less known aspect of American Minimalism, namely its involvement in 1968 political activism,  by examining some of its critical considerations about the relationship between the ethic and the aesthetic of artistic gesture.

El escrache, desarrollado por las distintas regionales de H.I.J.O.S., no es un fin en sí mismo sino una herramienta política para alcanzar la condena social. El escrache ha sido apropiado en diversos contextos en nuestro país y fuera de él, siempre teniendo como objetivo visibilizar, señalar, inicialmente genocidas y represores y luego a culpables de distintos hechos. Es una herramienta contra la impunidad y el silencio, cuando la justicia y el poder político deciden mirar hacia otro lado. El escrache es hoy una palabra común, con un sentido claro, aunque muchas veces banalizado y (no de manera ingenua) malinterpretado como una acción fascista. Pero en algún momento, a mediados de los '90, cuando las Leyes de Impunidad estaban vigentes y los indultos liberaban genocidas, H.I.J.O.S. fue construyendo, a fuerza de tenacidad, imaginación política y organización, un nuevo sentido para esa palabra del lunfardo: el escrache se transformó en la herramienta para que "el país sea su cárcel".

The architectural discourse and its practices became postpolitical within the society by not only accommodating the change with neoliberalism, but also enhancing this formation.  Through the worldwide economic and social crisis, people are drawing  new democratic imaginaries reminding us the political features of the space.

The Gezi Park protests become a material for the architectural narrative of the thesis concerned with the dynamics of society. The brutal police intervention against those who gathered in the Gezi Park in order to resist the demolition of the park to reconstruct the Artillery Barracks on the night of May 27th, transformed the event into a farreaching social  movement.
The study is rediscovering the nascent expressions from the Gezi Park protests,  to generate a critical knowledge by monitoring its practice and context.  This laboratory underlines the urgent necessity of a socio-political dialog within the architectural discourse

Publication of the Avtonomi Akadimia's program of the summer semester 2018

Save Plato’s Academy Garden from the Shopping Mall! Please, find out more, sign and forward the petition: www.academygardens.org
Avtonomi Akadimia, Athens
BlackRock Protest Semester is a response to an illegal deal signed from the minister of the environment Giorgios Stathakis for the construction of a 45.000m2 shopping mall “Academy Gardens”, close to the archeological site and the large public garden of Akadimia Platonos. The project is backed (350mln) by the supranational corporation BlackRock, the so-called world’s largest shadow bank.
Akadimia Platonos is a unique conjunction of an archeological site and a pulsating meeting point of local and international communites. With the alternative economy gatherings, permaculture workshops, performances, martial arts lessons, courses for non-fossil energies, rainbow families celebrations, seminars on politics, fair trade shops, commons festivals, Akadimia Platonos garden manifests a culture of solidarity.
One of the initiatives active in the garden is a free access intercultural university Avtonomi Akadimia. It practices the sharing of knowledge by inviting artists, philosophers, scientists, shamans and activists to be involved in a long term deep exchanges with a world-wide community of participants. This continuous action of the so-called activist art is a constitutive form of protest as university. It aims to transform our educational system from the regime of punishment into joyful experience of enfolding our creative potential.
Yes, while Greece is being relentlessly privatized and the ecosystem of Mediterranean Basin brutally raped by criminal corporations, we envision an enlightened society.
We designate the agency of art to act in favor of all living. By being present in the garden of the Plato’s school we negotiate philosophy today. We decenter. We intertweave incompatible paths of knowledge. We elaborate on an environmental vocabulary for art and politics. We heal, sing, plant, dance, draw deantropocene drawings. We reinforce our spirits.

The article presents a brief history of Polish performance art – from its birth in 1978 to the present. The first part focuses on its roots and those aspects which shaped its present state. Artists during the communist regime separated themselves from politics keeping in mind how art was used in social-realism. The second part focuses on the period 1989-2000, when artists started to move different topics, but the form in which they were expressing their stance remained “classic”. After 2000, some artists became art activists and use performance art strategies in fighting for social change. Another new issue is the emergence of contemporary performance artists – choreographers. These shifts cause a conflict between artists in a discussion about the definition of performance art and the role of art and artists in society, especially in the context of art education which tends to preserve the “traditional performance art” model.

As artists, we are not in power, but through morphology we give power: we give form to power. The practice of assemblism that we can derive from Judith Butler’s work opens up the possibility of a new collectivity arising from the precariat—a new Us with the potential to shatter the Us/Them divide that has brought the new authoritarian world order into being. Embedding our artistic practice within social movements, we can help formulate the new campaigns, the new symbols, and the popular poetry needed to bolster the emergence of a radical collective imaginary. In that process, we can also begin to devise the new infrastructures—the parallel parliaments, the stateless embassies, the transdemocratic unions—needed to establish the institutions that will make a new emancipatory governance a reality.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of two artist-led collective actors, Koalition der Freien Szene (KFS) and Haben and Brauchen (H&B), and their differing strategies of political critique towards Berlin’s cultural policy-making complex. The paper seeks to contribute to the lack of empirical case studies on Berlin’s cultural governance and cultural policy stakeholders by creating a self-designed framework for analysis of artist-led organizations’ formulation of political claims and how their articulations find entrance into policy-making. Design/methodology/approach The paper’s theoretical framework is situated at the intersection between new social movement studies, post-positivist policy analysis and discursive institutionalism. Methodologically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews with members of KFS, H&B and relevant cultural stakeholders from Berlin’s contemporary arts scene. Findings The paper identifies five differentiating axes of polit...

The stateless parliament, as the Democratic Self-Administration and the New World Summit intend it to be, is ideology materialized. Not just as a mere form, but as a form to be performed, and a performance aimed at self-interrogation and transformation. Rojava has shown that revolution is first of all a performance of ideology. The Rojava revolution is not one that hopes for a different world in an unknown future when statehood is achieved and utopia has developed properly and linearly, as our revolutionary textbooks have taught us. Rather, it is revolution as a painstakingly won process of building a new society through a change of mentality and a change of performance: through a change of form. The Rojava revolution proposes a different performance of politics, and as such, also a different performance of art.

Der Beitrag verbindet die Diskussion um die postpolitische Stadt mit der zunehmenden wissenschaftlichen und aktivistischen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Anthropozän, ein Konzept, das die ökologischen und sozialpolitischen Implikationen menschlichen Handelns auf die Erdoberfläche beschreibt. Anhand von drei ausgewählten Fallstudien erkunden wir, wie die spezifisch anthropogene, also menschengemachte, Krise urbaner Luftverschmutzung in künstlerischen Positionen problematisiert wird. Im Kontext des potenziellen Vormarschs von Postpolitik besprechen wir, wie der ambivalente Diskurs des Anthropozäns einerseits Depolitisierung begünstigt und andererseits neue Möglichkeiten für die Repolitisierung globaler Umweltherausforderungen ermöglicht.

Erstens zeigen wir anhand von Amy Balkins Projekt „Public Smog“ (USA), wie künstlerischer Aktivismus nicht nur internationale Luftemissionshandelsregimes subvertieren kann, sondern durch das Aktivieren von Vorstellungskraft für bessere Luft affektive Utopien erschaffen kann. Zweitens beleuchten wir die Performance „Project Dust“ des chinesischen Künstlers Nut Brother, der selbstgesammelte Smogpartikel zu einem Backstein goss und Luftverschmutzung damit gleichzeitig als harte Tatsache und Anlass zur Sorge vermittelt. Drittens diskutieren wir den teils kommerziellen Ansatz des niederländischen Konzeptkünstlers und Designers Daan Roosegaarde, der mit seiner „Smog-Free“-Produktreihe innovative Lösungen für das Problem anthropogener Luftverschmutzung bereitzustellen versucht. Die künstlerischen Projekte umreißen die Streitbarkeit des öffentlichen Gutes Luft und fordern mit affektiven Mitteln zur Politisierung der postpolitischen, luftverschmutzten Stadt auf.

This paper uses Australian case studies to demonstrate the use of humour in social justice and eco-pax movements. Drawing from the literature and from personal experience in activist street-theatre over more than twenty years, the author discusses the rationale and motivations behind humorous activism, and notes audience reactions and impacts on participants. Using non-violence theory within the multidisciplinary paradigm of Peace Studies, he describes how activists use humour to enliven popular education, and to create liminal atmospheres conducive to non-violent conversion. Humorous activism creates common ground and complements other modes of activism. It is inclusive, drawing in audiences and adherents and attracting media attention. It simplifies and enhances communication, and allows activists to release emotions such as rage and frustration, while at the same time providing positive, enjoyable experiences for audiences. It can empower and inspire audiences, and bring a healthy balance and diversity to activism.

PPE Portrait Project è un progetto dell’artista Mary Beth Heffernan, che consiste nel dotare i dispositivi di protezione del personale medico-sanitario impegnato nel contrasto a malattie infettive con i loro ritratti fotografici. Realizzata per la prima volta durante l’epidemia di Ebola in Africa occidentale (2014-2016), l’opera ha visto una fase di “riattivazione” durante la pandemia di Covid- 19, negli Stati Uniti e in Italia. L’articolo la analizza cercando di svelare le implicazioni estetiche di questa intersezione tra l’immagine tecnica per eccellenza, la fotografia, e la tecnica medica.

PPE Portrait Project is an art project by Mary Beth Heffernan, which provides protective personal equipment of caregivers working against infectious diseases with their photographic portraits. First conceived during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa (2014-2016), the work has been re-enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States and Italy. The article analyses it, trying to unveil the aesthetic implications of this intersection between the technical image par excellence, photography, and medical technique.

La segunda oleada de políticas neoliberales que han tenido lugar en nuestro país a partir de la presidencia de Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), luego del gobierno de Carlos Menem (1989-1999), ha suscitado la aparición de nuevos colectivos de activismo artístico (Longoni, Pérez Rocca, Lidia, Di Filippo, 2017). Estos colectivos jerarquizan en su quehacer procedimientos performáticos. Sus acciones invaden la ciudad (Carreira, 2017) con diversas tácticas. Nos centraremos en este caso en la descripción y el análisis de la performance #CientíficxsEnlaCalle, una propuesta que se llevó a cabo el 14 de mayo de 2019 en la Plaza de Mayo e inmediaciones. Convocada por la Compañía de Funciones Patrióticas, un colectivo que trabaja desde hace más de diez años en los cruces entre el artivismo, el teatro y la performance, #CientíficxsEnlaCalle contó con la participación de artistas invitados y de dos colectivos que nuclean a los investigadores perjudicados por el recorte presupuestario que sufrió el sistema científico durante el gobierno de Mauricio Macri: la Red Federal de Afectadxs del CONICET y la Comisión contra la Discriminación Etaria en Ciencia (CODEC).

Call for Papers
Taking into account the need for a global approach to the phenomenon, and the exploration of its most diverse forms and concepts, this conference aims to contribute to the study of arts activism since the 1990s.
The organizing team of this symposium aims to bring together researchers from different perspectives to reflect together on the various forms and conceptions of art activism:
- In cultural areas other than Western (Central and Latin America, Asia, Africa, Pacific), often marginalized in the approaches to the phenomenon.
- In artistic productions developed in Western countries, attentive, in particular, to the issues of marginalized areas, immigration, otherness, and diasporic identity.

Este artículo presenta un análisis comparativo del escrache y su despliegue expresivo, del escrache en Argentina (a través de H.I.J.O.S. Capital y la Mesa de Escrache Popular) y en España (a través de la Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca- Barcelona). En el caso de la Argentina ha sido una herramienta desarrollada para generar condena social a los represores impunes de la última dictadura militar. En los primeros meses de 2013, la PAH utiliza el escrache como estrategia de acción política, y reconoce su origen en la práctica argentina homónima.
El presente trabajo se propone aportar a una genealogía del escrache y sus apropiaciones. Y en particular, reconocer las técnicas de expresión del movimiento y la producción de nuevas escenas de enunciación.

Este seminario invita a pensar las intervenciones realizadas por los colectivos de activismo artístico en recientes épocas de cerrazón de voces disidentes, crecimiento de formas de represión y censura, y concentración mediática en la Argentina macrista. La calle, las redes sociales, el feminismo y las diversas formas de conformación del espacio público, son los escenarios en los cuales los colectivos de activismo artístico contemporáneo desarrollan sus performances. Nos proponemos problematizar los modos de apreciación y apropiación de lo estético desde la tensión entre visibilidad pública y generación de identificaciones colectivas y construcción de identidades.
Inscripción: del 5 al 16 de abril de 2021
Inicio: 4 de mayo de 2021

La violencia precipitada por la guerra contra el narcotráfico en México ha motivado el surgimiento de iniciativas ciudadanas encaminadas a propiciar que los conteos de muertos y desaparecidos sean reconocidos como pérdidas de vidas humanas insustituibles y no como cifras abstractas o daños colaterales. El presente artículo analiza la manera en que las experiencias sensoriales y afectivas suscitadas por algunas de estas estrategias desarrolladas durante 2010 y 2011, dan forma a una indignación compartida que expresa y articula pérdidas, asuntos y problemas que no son cabalmente reconocidos ni por el Estado ni por la sociedad civil en su conjunto. /// In response to the upsurge of violence precipitated by Mexico’s war on drug-trafficking a number of groups of civilian activists have joined in a concerted effort to promote the public acknowledgment of the body counts as human losses rather than abstract numbers or collateral damage. This paper analyses the process by which the sensitive and emotive experiences fostered by some of these strategies developed during 2010 and 2011 give form to a shared outrage that expresses and articulates losses, issues and problems that both the State and the society at large refuse to acknowledge.

En la segunda mitad de los sesenta se fue forjando en Europa un clima de conflicto e insatisfacción que llegó a su culminación con la insurrección de los estudiantes y obreros en 1968. La protesta social marcó a una generación que se pronunció activamente contra la guerra de Vietnam, el conflicto de Argelia, y que acabó por tomar las calles en 1968. Se trataba de una generación que hizo del frente bélico uno de los fundamentos más importantes de su protesta. Vietnam se convirtió en el símbolo de la opresión del sistema capitalista americano que se quería derrocar, las revolución de Cuba y la figura del Che Guevara era la toma del poder armada a la que se quería aspirar; Mao y su revolución cultural era la ideología a instaurar. De la protesta se llegó, en el caso francés, a la construcción de barricadas en pleno París para luchar contra las fuerzas policiales, durante mayo de 1968. Los bloques este-oeste que marcaban los diferentes frentes de la guerra fría comenzaban a desestabilizarse, al convertir la ideología comunista en una de las grandes reivindicaciones de los jóvenes de mayo.
Dentro de estos conflictos sociales, el compromiso de los artistas fue determinante en el seno de las protestas. La guerra de Vietnam, los conflictos con Argelia, las huelgas obreras en España, las revueltas estudiantiles del 68 fueron la temática de artistas como Arroyo, Rancillac, Erro o el Equipo Crónica. Estas obras se inscribían dentro de una corriente, bautizada por el crítico francés Gassiot-Talabot Figuración Narrativa, que pretendía, a la vez, testimoniar y denunciar. Las pinturas se entendieron como armas de lucha contra la sociedad burguesa en el campo de la cultura. Así, el papel beligerante del arte, que debía combatir la realidad, fue una de las consignas de base de los artistas del Salon de la Jeune Peinture (Arroyo, Rancillac,..) de París. El caso más evidente de esta lucha se produjo en París en mayo del 68, cuando los artistas relacionados con el Salón de la Jeune Peinture y otros que provenían de tendencias muy variadas, tomaron la École Nationale de Beaux Arts y crearon los “talleres populares”. De estos talleres surgieron una multitud de carteles con mensajes y emblemas que, repartidos por todo París, se convirtieron en las armas escritas de la revuelta de mayo.
El objetivo de esta comunicación es el de analizar la visión que el arte dio de los conflictos sociales de la segunda mitad de los sesenta hasta 1968 dentro de las tendencias figurativas. Para ello, analizaremos los mensajes recogidos y difundidos por los artistas; como y de que manera transformaron estos mensajes, mediante los medios artísticos; como se entendió y se llevó a cabo la consigna de lucha cultural en el arte durante este período; y, finalmente, cual fue el papel del arte en la labor de concienciación del espectador.

This paper seeks to define the role of visual arts in the construction of the memory of the internal armed conflict in Peru (1980-2000). This theme has been analyzed by representative cases, which have been selected for the social and political  issues that the artwork reveals and for their influence on the cultural policies dedicated to this theme. This work is divided in two parts: one about the independent artistic actions of institutional critique that took place during and after the conflict; and other about the institutional initiatives represented by public memorials and museums of memory.

The paper sets out to explore the interrelation between acts of boundary-drawing and affect to unpack the potential of an ontology of negativity within political activism. Viewing borders as structuring element of difference- and negativity-based political theory (Marchart 2007, 2013; Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Laclau 2007) and affect as crucial capacity to activate radical understandings of democracy (Mouffe 2005, 2013), the paper critically examines the understudied dimension of affect in the neg(oti)ation of spatial boundaries or limits in post-foundational thought and political geography.

The paper examines the performance First European Fall of the Wall (Europäischer Mauerfall; 2014) by the Berlin-based artist activist group Center for Political Beauty (Zentrum für Politische Schönheit), in which the group temporarily removed White Crosses, a memorial site commemorating civil casualties of the German-German border, situated in the vicinity of the German Bundestag, and transported them to the southern borders of the European Union. While the (unsolicited) literal displacement of the spatial boundaries of Europe (i.e., marking and moving the limits of European space, morale and belonging) might suggest a pro-active form of activism, the paper reveals the group’s activity as situated within a logic of radical negativity rather than positivity. In this vein, the conjuration of the absence of official European migration politics, and the appeal to the fatal vulnerability of the past and future casualties at the border reveal the action as negative practice of activism. Ambiguating the meaning of the terms ‘border’ and ‘limit’, fusing their spatial, symbolical or affective ramifications, the paper sketches the potentiality of ‘negative’ protest via (in)action.

As transgressive phenomenon, and simultaneously and therefore located not without difficulty in the crossing between contemporary art and politics, as suggested, among others Rafael Schacter, graffiti is a practice that nurtures forms of artistic activism as well as experiences of social movements, from those more spontaneous and ephemeral, to those that, already consolidated, incorporate that primary gesture of appropriation and presence of and in the public space as part of the rituals of vindication of their demands.

In that way, the presence of a body less and less anonymous and certainly less attributed to the masculine, a collective body, even in the practice of graffiti, refers precisely and among other aspects, transformations in the ways in which art deals with and thinks about politics, and with that, alterations in the processes of creation and authorship, but also in the spaces and discourses from which art is created, circulated and made public.

In the perspective of thinking both issues, that is, the renewed authorship and presence of women in the practice of graffiti, and the artistic treatment of political issues outside the predetermined fields for that purpose, this proposal aims to reflect on the creative experience of urban female Colombian artists about the armed conflict and its complexities. In this sense, it seeks to investigate the relationship between art and politics based on what would be a committed, public and autonomous artistic practice.

The paper sets out to explore the interrelation between acts of boundary-drawing and affect to unpack the potential of an ontology of negativity within political activism. Viewing borders as structuring element of difference-and negativity-based political theory (Marchart 2007, 2013; Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Laclau 2007) and affect as crucial capacity to activate radical understandings of democracy (Mouffe 2005, 2013), the paper critically examines the understudied dimension of affect in the neg(oti)ation of spatial boundaries or limits in post-foundational thought and political geography. The paper examines the performance, First European Fall of the Wall (2014), by the Berlin-based artist activist group, Center for Political Beauty, in which the group temporarily removed white crosses, a memorial site commemorating civil casualties of the German-German border, situated in the vicinity of the German Bundestag, and transported them to the southern borders of the European Union. While the unsolicited displacement of the spatial boundaries of Europe (i.e., marking/moving the limits of European space, morale and belonging) might suggest a pro-active form of activism, the paper reveals the group's activity as situated within a logic of radical negativity rather than positivity. In this vein, the acknowledgement of the absence of 'official' and/or legally binding European migration politics, and the appeal to the fatal vulnerability of the past and future casualties at the border reveal the action as negative practice of activism. Ambiguating the meaning of 'borders' and 'limits', fusing their spatial, symbolic or affective ramifications, the paper sketches the potentiality of 'negative' protest via action that highlights inaction.

“Letter to the ambassador” was an open letter to the ambassador of Israel in Austria, Dan Ashbel. It was first published in May 15, 2008, in the Austrian newspaper “Die Presse” alongside a short comment by Mr. Ashbel.

The letter was then published as Tal Adler’s curator’s statement in the catalog of the exhibition Overlapping Voices at the ESSL Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria (16.5 – 26.10.2008). A facsimile of the newspaper pages with the letter and Mr. Ashbel’s comment were printed in the following catalog spread.

Technical reproduction in general, and photography in particular have changed the status and practices of
art. Similarly, the expansion of Web 2.0 interactive spaces presents opportunities and challenges to artistic
communities.
Present study focuses on artistic activism: socially sensitive artists publish their creation on the internet on its
most interactive space – social media. These artworks carry both artistic and social messages. Such practices
force us to reinterpret some elements of the classical art paradigm: its autonomy, authorship, uniqueness (as
opposed to copies and series), and the social role of art.
The analysis is aimed at Hungarian and Romanian online artistic projects from Transylvania region of Romania,
relevant as intercultural communication endeavours. Our research question is the way they differ from
the traditional artistic paradigm.

The central goal of my dissertation is to sketch the relational a(nta)gonistic relationships between Berlin’s cultural and administrative protagonists. By means of semi-structured interviews, participatory observation and policy document analyses, I will examine how Berlin’s contemporary cultural policy is (co)produced by the articulatory practices of artist initiatives and organizations. Koalition der Freien Szene (Coalition of the Independent Scene; KFS), a multi-disciplinary
coalition of Berlin-based artists founded in 2012, is examined as
empirical case study to delineate the processes of political articulation, collectivization and mobilization amongst artists in Berlin.

Addresses the theme of "Originally Tasmanian: Creativity and Innovation in the Island State" by discussing 3-degrees of separation; academics and artists; the tension between historical, and geographical, stories about the island, and the reading of texts from an historical versus a literary theoretical perspective. Discusses the translation of island politics – environmental and aesthetic – as essential in provoking "originality" in the island.

La violencia precipitada por la guerra contra el narcotrafico en Mexico ha motivado el surgimiento de iniciativas ciudadanas encaminadas a propiciar que los conteos de muertos y desaparecidos sean reconocidos como perdidas de vidas humanas insustituibles y no como cifras abstractas o danos colaterales. El presente articulo analiza la manera en que las experiencias sensoriales y afectivas suscitadas por algunas de estas estrategias desarrolladas durante 2010 y 2011, dan forma a una indignacion compartida que expresa y articula perdidas, asuntos y problemas que no son cabalmente reconocidos ni por el Estado ni por la sociedad civil en su conjunto.

Technical reproduction in general, and photography in particular have changed the status and practices of art. Similarly, the expansion of Web 2.0 interactive spaces presents opportunities and challenges to artistic communities. Present study focuses on artistic activism: socially sensitive artists publish their creation on the internet on its most interactive space – social media. These artworks carry both artistic and social messages. Such practices force us to reinterpret some elements of the classical art paradigm: its autonomy, authorship, uniqueness (as opposed to copies and series), and the social role of art. The analysis is aimed at Hungarian and Romanian online artistic projects from Transylvania region of Romania, relevant as intercultural communication endeavours. Our research question is the way they differ from the traditional artistic paradigm.