The IfCAR project Art & Activism is oriented towards the concept of a dialogical aesthetic as defined by the American art historian Grant Kester (Kester 2011) and discussed further in the context of critical cultural mediation (Zobl 2019) and New Public Art (Petersen 2021). Rather than foregrounding the production of symbolic representations, manifestos, and polemics, a "dialogic aesthetic" focuses on processes of involvement, exchange, and re-negotiation. Specifically, the IfCAR project Art & Activism is interested in two dimensions: The artistic addressing of concrete socio-political situations; the development of social positioning and approaches to action in exchange with socially engaged actors. Within the framework of Art & Activism, sub-projects have been carried out annually since 2022 in specific contexts, which do not primarily result in (material) works. Rather, they produce knowledge about concrete socio-political conditions and urgencies as well as about the possibilities of negotiating them and actively positioning oneself in relation to them.
Project responsible: Marcel Bleuler