Art in the After-Culture - Climate collapse, ascendant fascism and the normalization of imperialist conquest and genocide denial has exposed the violent contradictions of western cultural institutions. In contrast to the erosion of institutional legitimacy, the “democratization of culture” online has exposed the labor of art workers to continued precarity through AI scraping, algorithmic gatekeeping, and the constant threat of elite capture. Worker solidarity across the cultural sector remains taboo, and the veneer of political engagement in the arts fails to address the real and material inequities faced by art workers. What is to be done? Drawing its title from a book by Ben Davis, this workshop engages “capitalist crisis with cultural strategy”, employing social practice methodologies in both theory and praxis.

Assements are based on a project-based learning format which takes into account presence, practical application, and final outputs, as well as self and peer reflection. 

Dusty Whistles is a trans woman, who is racialized as white, non-disabled, and comes from a working class and second-generation immigrant perspective (Portugal and Venezuela). She was born on Matinecock territory in the colonial occupation called “New York”, and has recently immigrated to Vienna in 2024. As an art worker her practice is centered in abolitionist and antifascist principals, with a focus on the culture of organizing and the art of mobilization within emancipatory movements. Her work is informed by over 25 years of political organizing, and has been realized internationally, focused in the cities of Lisbon, "New York" and Berlin. In Vienna she has initiated various social practice works and is the founder of the Archive of Austrian Repression and Complicity.