Description
There is an increasing interest in aesthetics in international politics, with new research taking seriously the political affects and effects of different ways of ‘seeing politics’ (Harman, 2019). This roundtable is interested in these developments, but also in turning our attention to art as a political practice and exploring how politics is done in art, as well as how it is seen. In particular, the roundtable considers the role of art in conflict and post-conflict spaces, and the potential of such work as activism. As Danko notes, there is a tendency of studies of artistic activism to either focus on the art or the politics, rather than considering them as inseperable and intertwined. The roundtable considers applying “art suspicion”… to reflect upon both Artivism as artistic practice and Artivism as political practice’ (Danko, 2018: 238). This roundtable will explore artistic activist practices in conflict and post conflict and pose a number of questions. What is the role of artists as witnesses of atrocity? How does artistic engagement produce different kinds of politics? How do different forms of activist art by those who have experienced conflict shape politics? What are the tensions between activist, practitioner and donor claims about the value of artistic process? How does the political intent of art shape the form and reception of it? Does artistic activism necessarily broaden political participation, or can it be another form of exclusion? Has the value of an artistic approach been weakened through the integration of the arts in mainstream peacebuilding programmes?
