Lecture series "Aesthetic Dimensions of the Political: Art, Activism, Participation"
Organised by Prof. Dr. Liliana Gómez, Dr. Charlotte Bank, Hannah Katalin Grimmer
25.04.2022 - 11.07.2022, 6-8 pm.
University of Kassel (Germany), Kunsthochschule, Menzelstraße 13 Nordbau / Room 0605
Zoom link: https://uni-kassel.zoom.us/j/94880127325?pwd=RmJUUkVVUEVKR0g5KzZEaGJJR1pQUT09
“Art constitutes one of the rare locations where acts of transcendence can take place and have a wide-ranging transformative impact." (bell hooks)
Based on bell hook's conceptualization of art and artistic production as fundamentally transformative, we invite a discussion with speakers from different disciplines within the lecture series "Aesthetic Dimensions of the Political: Art, Activism, Participation", scheduled for the summer semester 2022. The speakers work in diverse fields of activity, thematic priorities and regional focuses, which are connected by feminist, queer-feminist and gender-related approaches.
Together we seek to address issues of diaspora, exile and flight, self-organization and resistance. We want to pursue the question of how the links between artistic creation, archival practices and critique can form theoretical concepts for the development of new forms of solidarity communities. Particularly in the effort to overcome global inequality and relationships of dependency in a world that is still shaped by (neo)colonial structures, art can have the potential to function as a space in which emancipatory strategies can be conceptualized.
The lecture series addresses questions of the interaction between art and society: A central focus is on the performative function of art and literature to speak the truth and demand political participation. The focus is on the aesthetic dimensions of the political and art’s ability to articulate alternative worlds. This critical potential of art enables art to go beyond questions about political institutions as ethical-aesthetic considerations. With their creative modes they create alternative semantics to, for example, the legal omissions of a society or a lack of political participation. Invited artists of Documenta 15, curators and researchers will explore these questions together.
Program:
1. 25 April 2022: Introduction: Liliana Gomez, Charlotte Bank, Hannah Grimmer
2. 02 May 2022: Andrea Giunta: Curatorial Strategies in Times of Exception: A Latin American Case (Zoom)
3. 09 May 2022: Gayatri Gopinath: Promiscuous Intimacies: Queer Diasporic Excavations of the Archive
4. 16 May 2022: Jens Kastner: Kampf dem bösen Blick! Das feministische Kunstkollektiv Polvo de Gallina Negra (1983-1993) im Kontext konzeptualistischer und aktivistischer Praxis (Zoom)
5. 23 May 2022: Monira Al Solh: “I strongly Believe that we have no rights whatsoever”
6. 30 May 2022: Elisabeth Tuider: Solidarität jenseits von Identitätspolitiken
7. 13 June 2022: Archives des luttes des femmes en Algerie
8. 20 June 2022: Marwa Arsanios in conversation with Charlotte Bank
9. 27 June 2022: Jill Casid: Melancholy as Medium
10. 04 July 2022: Sylvia Sasse
11. 11 July 2022: Burcu Dogramaci: Queer Exile, displaced Arts - Kunstgeschichte auf schwankendem Boden
More information here.