Visual Activism in the 21st Century : Art, Protest and Resistance in an Uncertain World

The world is in crisis, bringing activists and protestors onto the streets and into the public eye. More than ever, activism relies on spectacle and visibility in order to be noticed in the era of globalized capitalism and networked media. At the same time, a growing number of artists employ creative strategies to critique the establishment, act in resistance, and demand change. Visual activism of this kind is not new, but it is rapidly evolving. This anthology presents 22 case-studies of visual activism from across the globe, providing an up-to-date picture of the impact of contemporary visual and art activism, and combining a scholarly interrogation of visual activism with an examination of how it works in practice. The case studies address a wide range of issues including human rights abuses; state violence; gender and sexuality; racism; migration; and climate breakdown. They examine a range of approaches from playful carnivalesque parades to extreme practices such as ‘gluing-on’ and ‘lip-sewing’, and are drawn from a wide range of international contexts – from Europe and the US to Israel, Palestine, Iran, India, Pakistan, Tunisia, and China. This diverse scope enables readers to consider examples comparatively – noticing emerging trends and key differences to reveal how geopolitical and cultural factors play an important role in shaping activist practices. This rich and timely collection provides a fresh perspective on the possibilities, limitations and politics of visual activism, as activists, artists, and curators respond to the changing world around them in this most uncertain of times. The world is in crisis, bringing protestors and activists onto the streets and into public attention. Whether small-scale or large, spontaneous or planned, in the era of globalised capitalism and networked media, activism relies on visibility. At the same time artists employ creative strategies to critique the establishment, demand change, act in resistance, and challenge respectability – sometimes known as ‘Artivism’, socially committed art of this kind is not new, but is evolving. Tracing the role of the visual in contemporary activism – from the safer spaces of the art gallery, the networked image, and carnivalesque parades, to more extreme and increasingly desperate practices – the point is always to bring injustice and danger into plain sight and to challenge it. This collection presents sixteen case-studies, each centred on a specific example of visual activism from across the globe, addressing a wide range of issues including: state violence, human rights abuses, inequalities of class, gender and sexuality, racism, sovereignty, migration, mass extinction and climate breakdown. In this rich and timely anthology, scholars explore the surprising variety of current and emerging practices of visual activism, as activists, artists, and curators flex to the changing world around them in this most uncertain of times. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Illustrations Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction to the anthology Darcy White and Stephanie Hartle This anthology: aims, terms and concepts Political art to activist art: tensions and blind spots What’s in a name? A question of aesthetics Subverting the institutional gaze From protest to activism: media representation, policing and the framing of ‘criminality’ The networked image Risks and dangers Outline of the themed sections and chapters PART ONE The politics of performance Acting / Re-enacting and alternative histories 1 Making sense and claiming a presence: The social semiotics of visual activism Introduction Visual activism Social semiotics Negotiating meaning Performing power Coming together Where to go from here 2 A total performance Invisibility, respectability and resistance in corporate capitalism A duplicitous industry A total performance Inside DSEI 3 By a thread: The space left to activism when fashion deals with the refugee ‘crisis’ 4 Digging up the left-wing corpse?: Visual activism and melancholia in Jeremy Deller’s, The Battle of Orgreave Melancholic acts or acting melancholic? Re-performing history: temporality and memory The aesthetics of performance and participation Living-on: digging up Orgreave’s vampires 5 Imperialism, empathy and healing in Rajkamal Kahlon’s artistic activism Phantom images, real people Shifting histories in women’s gazes 6 Shooting back / Speaking forward: Decolonial strategies in the work of Sasha Huber I. Praxis II. A dialogue PART TWO Places of protest Public space and citizenship 7 Visible speechlessness: A critical approach to image acts of lip-sewing 8 ‘Ripples in water’: Minor episodes of feminist visual activism by three women artists in the PRC (2007–15) Introduction A quick note on art, performance and activism in China Three artists and their visual activism Gao Ling Li Xinmo Sun Shaokun 9 ‘America is Black,’ Indigenous and Muslim: Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s public challenges to white nationalism Introduction America is Black (2016) and making space via cultural activism Expanding spaces: Oklahoma and Brooklyn are also Black 10 Farida Batool: A Pakistani visual activist Introduction History of Pakistan: a violent brooding place? The challenge of art’s response to sectarian violence and political killings The tapestry from Pakistan is red Line of control: unapproachable boundaries 11 Jason deCaires Taylor’s submerged sculptures and the iconography of slow violence MUSA Slow violence Icons 12 Keeping the peace: The visual in the ‘struggle’ of non-violent activism in a global existential crisis Visual communication: Extinction Rebellion’s visual identity Scholarship under emergency conditions: issues of (im)partiality Critiques of Western environmentalism An issue of justice: non-violence / peaceful protestas a both a principle and strategy Concluding thoughts PART THREE Connectivity online Digital activism and the networked image 13 Montage and vernacular spectatorship: The role played by YouTube channel AnarChnowa as a tool of video activismin post-14 January 2011 Tunisia Introduction The vernacular spectator as a storyteller The case-study: the YouTube channel AnarChnowa AnarChnowa’s montage recombines vernacular video and shows the contradictions of post-14 January 2011 Tunisia The genre of the mash-up as a tool for expanding history Fiction carries truth against amnesia 14 Sociality, appearance and surveillance in digital political activism The banner Facebook’s dual role The filter Digital activism Sociality Colour Sociality in-colour Sociality via geolocation Sociality, appearance and surveillance 15 Rendering the invisible visible: Menstrual activism in contemporary India Introduction The abject menstrual body: fear of fluidity Understanding menstrual taboos inmainstream Indian culture #Menstruation #blood #red: Instagram as a field of protest Whose feminism is it anyway? A critique 16 Unruly images: The activist visuality of technical and bodily disruptions on Instagram Introduction: a cross-disciplinary perspective on visuality and activism Activist visuality: two interventions Concluding discussion: a tactical use of legibility Index Plates "The world is in crisis, bringing activists and protestors onto the streets and into the public eye. More than ever, activism relies on spectacle and visibility in order to be noticed in the era of globalized capitalism and networked media. At the same time, a growing number of artists employ creative strategies to critique the establishment, act in resistance, and demand change. Visual activism of this kind is not new, but it is rapidly evolving. This anthology presents 22 case-studies of visual activism from across the globe, providing an up-to-date picture of the impact of contemporary visual and art activism, and combining a scholarly interrogation of visual activism with an examination of how it works in practice. The case studies address a wide range of issues including human rights abuses; state violence; gender and sexuality; racism; migration; and climate breakdown. They examine a range of approaches from playful carnivalesque parades to extreme practices such as 'gluing-on' and 'lip-sewing', and are drawn from a wide range of international contexts -- from Europe and the US to Israel, Palestine, Iran, India, Pakistan, Tunisia, and China. This diverse scope enables readers to consider examples comparatively -- noticing emerging trends and key differences to reveal how geopolitical and cultural factors play an important role in shaping activist practices. This rich and timely collection provides a fresh perspective on the possibilities, limitations and politics of visual activism, as activists, artists, and curators respond to the changing world around them in this most uncertain of times."-- Résumé de l'éditeur The world is in crisis, bringing activists and protesters onto the streets and into the public eye. More than ever, activism relies on spectacle and visibility in order to be noticed in the era of globalized capitalism and networked media. At the same time, a growing number of artists employ creative strategies to critique the establishment, act in resistance, and demand change. Visual activism of this kind is not new, but it is rapidly evolving. This anthology presents 16 case-studies of visual activism from across the globe, providing an up-to-date picture of the impact of contemporary visual and art activism, and combining a scholarly interrogation of visual activism with an examination of how it works in practice. The case studies address a wide range of issues including human rights abuses; state violence; gender and sexuality; racism; migration; and climate breakdown. They examine a range of approaches from playful carnivalesque parades to extreme practices such as 'lip-sewing', and are drawn from a wide range of international contexts – from Europe and the US, to Iran, India, Pakistan, Tunisia, and China. This diverse scope enables readers to consider examples comparatively – noticing emerging trends and key differences to reveal how geopolitical and cultural factors play an important role in shaping activist practices. This rich and timely collection provides a fresh perspective on the possibilities, limitations and politics of visual activism, as activists, artists, and curators respond to the changing world around them in this most uncertain of times.