A collective exercise for EASA 2024
led by María Inés Plaza Lazo, Founder of Arts of the Working Class, María Berrios, Director of Curatorial Programmes and Research at MACBA, and the artist Michael Hart. In collaboration with the ANTART convenors, Alex Ungprateeb Flynn (UCLA), Francesca Cozzolino (EnsAD), and Giuliana Borea (Newcastle University).
MACBA - Wednesday, July 24, 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Arts of the Working Class is a multi-lingual street journal that examines poverty and wealth, art, and society. Published every two months, street sellers earn money directly and vendors keep 100% of their sales. As a medium and platform, the newspaper creates special and sustainable connections between artists, workers, academics, urbanists, and cultural and social institutions from different countries and languages with the most vulnerable members of society:
those deeply affected by extreme poverty and the disabled create ways of participating and accessing the kinds of agency assigned to groups and individuals within the safe spaces of the cultural production industries and academia. This pursuit not only creates new means of communicating and behaving around and through art, but also for direct redistribution of cultural capital: being space – material, immaterial – for participation in content production, discussion and dissemination.
Participants of this workshop are invited to consider the terminologies and methodologies of their forms of research towards the end of entering into dialogue with research practices beyond the academy. What could that look like? How might we flip the coin to consider an anthropological and curatorial revision of art within grassroots meanings and systems? Led by AWC, María Berrios, and Michael Hart, the workshop proposes ways to do and undo research in a manner which constructs dialogue with people informally working on the streets.
______________________________________________________
Group 1
Question: As an anthropologist observing the precarious conditions of art workers and academics, how would you transform your findings into an immersive art installation that highlights the systemic injustices they face?
Task: Design an interactive art installation – any scale imaginable – that not only tells the stories of academics' and art workers’ daily struggles but also critiques the economic and social systems contributing to their precarity and their alienation from localities. Consider how to provoke thought and inspire action among audiences.
Group 2
Question: If your research were a form of protest, how would you perform it to not only disrupt public complacency but to spark conversations about the exploitation of art workers and academics on a global scale?
Task: Develop a concept for a multilingual protest performance that uses your research to challenge societal norms and expose the harsh realities faced by art workers and academics. Outline the roles, settings, and audience engagement tactics that will make the performance impactful, thought-provoking, and as accessible as possible.
Group 3
Question: How can the intersection of art and anthropology be used to critique and transform local perceptions of poverty and inequality, especially in the context of the current polycrisis?
Task: Create a series of art interventions outside of museums and universities. Choose 2 institutions, at least, (there is no upward limit for possible targets) that leverage anthropological insights to address poverty and inequality. Focus on how these interventions can raise awareness, provoke critical thought, and mobilize community action against systemic injustices.
Group 4
Question: Imagine creating a documentary that combines anthropological and artistic methods of observation to expose the lived experiences of those facing precarity in the arts. What stories would you prioritize – involving local or international networks? – and how would you ensure their ethical representation?
Task: Plan an experimental documentary. Highlight the voices and stories of precarious art workers and academics, emphasizing their resilience and resistance to their disassociation from social realities. Develop a strategy for ethical storytelling that respects the dignity of participants and challenges viewers to confront uncomfortable truths. Try to focus the frame of the documentary on specific neighborhoods.
Group 5
Question: If you were to organize a pop-up event that radically blends anthropology and art, how would you ensure it reconnects the voices of art workers and academics to neighborhoods and drives collective action into localities as well as international networks? What speaks for the temporality of this event? What speaks against it?
Task: Design a pop-up event that serves as a platform for art workers to share their experiences and collaborate with anthropologists. Outline activities and discussions that foster solidarity, critique systemic issues, and propose actionable solutions.
Group 6
Question: Envision a platform (digital or other) that not only showcases the outcomes of street-based anthropological and artistic research but also functions as a tool for activism. What innovative features would you include to engage and mobilize participants?
Task: Conceptualize a platform (digital or other) that combines your project’s findings with diverse elements designed to educate, engage, and mobilize viewers around issues of precarity and the polycrisis. Think about multimedia integration, interactive discussions, and calls to action.
//
