Global communities and critical citizenship: Citizenship and artists' practice

About

This series of events brings together an international line-up of artists, academics and cultural professionals to debate what is at stake in reimagining new forms of citizenship and modes of civic participation. In a connected, increasingly post-national world, what role do artists and public institutions play in critically querying understandings of citizenship and in creating a space where new sensibilities, terminologies and practices of citizenship are enabled? This panel looks at artists' practice that presents a framework for thinking through what a more critical form of citizenship might look like, and how we might take steps towards enacting more active forms of citizenship. Some of the questions that we will discuss are: How have artists dealt with questions of citizenship and political representation through their practice? Can artists instigate a new form of community, simultaneously highlighting while pushing against the boundaries of exclusion? Can artists' practice politicise communities and instigate long-term changes within these? How has the role of the artist in recent years come to be more readily accepted by communities unattached to the sphere of art production and consumption? What are the problems and opportunities raised by artists working in these ways? This panel looks at artists' practice that seeks to challenge our conceptions of being together, of community, of society and of citizenship, complicating our understanding of the role and potential of the artist in society. These artists work in complex spaces of activism, social justice and art, pushing the boundaries of collective and individual agency. These are simultaneously comfortable and contested spaces always negotiated with great care. The panel will explore practices from a diverse international context, including Cambodia, Brazil, the Netherlands and the UK. The panel will also seek to complicate our understanding of the role and potential of the artist in society, and to push the boundaries of individual and collective agency. Speakers include Artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, curator Lydia Parusol, artist Elisa Bracher and chaired by Sally Tallant.