Visual Activism in the 21st Century

Art, Protest and Resistance in an Uncertain World

Stephanie Hartle, Darcy White, Stephanie Hartle, Darcy White

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781350265110
• eBook ISBN: 9781350265097
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art & Politics

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction to the Anthology
• 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
• 2 A Total Performance: Invisibility, respectability and resistance in corporate capitalism
• 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
• 5 Imperialism, Empathy and Healing in Rajkamal Kahlon’s Artistic Activism
• 6 Shooting Back / Speaking Forward: Decolonial strategies in the work of Sasha Huber
• 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)
• Plates
• 9 ‘America is Black,’ Indigenous and Muslim: Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s public challenges to white nationalism
• 10 Farida Batool: A Pakistani visual activist
• 11 Jason DeCaires Taylor’s Submerged Sculptures and the Iconography of Slow Violence
• 12 Keeping the Peace: The visual in the ‘struggle’ of non-violent activism in a global existential crisis
• 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 visual activism in post-14 January 2011 Tunisia
• 14 Sociality, Appearance and Surveillance in Digital Political Activism
• 15 Rendering the Invisible Visible: Menstrual activism in contemporary India
• 16 Unruly Images: The activist visuality of technical and bodily disruptions on Instagram
• Index
• Copyright