The word empowerment evokes many associations. The most distinguishing semantic characteristic is the term “active”. The notions of “activist” or “socially engaged” art refer to artistic practices that are integrated with, or responsive to, forms of political protest and resistance. This typically entails some connection to a social or political movement, community, or group that is seeking to contest hegemonic forms of domination, often associated with differences of class, race, ethnicity, or sexuality. The form taken by activist art can range from relatively abbreviated performative gestures to extended engagements with institutional power structures, to modes of symbolic or discursive production circulating in the public sphere. In each case, however, we can observe a reciprocal relationship between artistic production and mechanisms of social and political transformation oriented toward human emancipation.

In this seminar cycle, we are talking about how these kinds of practices are being formed and further developed over time by looking at some concrete examples and practitioners as well as by talking about the individual artistic experiences of the participants.