Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times

This book charts the changing frontiers of activism in the Americas. Travelling Canada, the US, the US-Mexico border, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Indigenous territories on Turtle Island, it invites readers to identify networks, clusters, and continuities of art-activist tactics designed to exceed the event horizon of the performance protest. Essays feature Indigenous artists engaging in land-based activism and decolonial cyberactivism, grass-roots movements imagining possible futures through cross-sector alliance building, art-activists forwarding tactics of reinvention, and student groups in the throes of theatrical assembly. Artist pages, interspersed throughout the collection, serve as animated, first-person perspectives of those working on the front lines of interventionist art. Taken together, the contributions offer a vibrant picture of emergent tactics and strategies over the past decade that allow art-activists to sustain the energy and press of political resistance in the face of a whole host of rights emergencies across the Americas.

Autorentext

Natalie Alvarez is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Ryerson University's School of Performance, Canada.

Claudette Lauzon is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, Canada.

Keren Zaiontz is Assistant Professor and Queen's National Scholar in the Department of Film and Media and the Cultural Studies Graduate Program at Queen's University, Canada.

Zusammenfassung

This collection promises to be a cornerstone in the field of performance studies and human rights activism. By mixing scholarly chapters with artists' manifestos or interruptions it promotes the idea of the collective work between academia and social movements. Not only is it very timely, theoretically savvy, and well written, it also brings together scholars, activists, artists, and artivists in a very fluid, collective approach, something many of us strive to do.

Paola S. Hernández, University of Wisconsin, USA

This book charts the changing frontiers of activism in the Americas. Travelling Canada, the US, the US-Mexico border, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Indigenous territories on Turtle Island, it invites readers to identify networks, clusters, and continuities of art-activist tactics designed to exceed the event horizon of the performance protest. Essays feature Indigenous artists engaging in land-based activism and decolonial cyberactivism, grass-roots movements imagining possible futures through cross-sector alliance building, art-activists forwarding tactics of reinvention, and student groups in the throes of theatrical assembly. Artist pages, interspersed throughout the collection, serve as animated, first-person perspectives of those working on the front lines of interventionist art. Taken together, the contributions offer a vibrant picture of emergent tactics and strategies over the past decade that allow art-activists to sustain the energy and press of political resistance in the face of a whole host of rights emergencies across the Americas.

Winner of the Excellence in Editing Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and recipient of an Honourable Mention for the Patrick O'Neill Prize administered by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.

Project Artists:

• The Great Collective Cough-In L.M. Bogad

• Le Temps d'une Soupe ATSA

• For Freedoms Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman

• Down with Self-Management! Re-Booting Ourselves as Feminist Servers subRosa

• Journey for Activism and Sustainability Escola de Ativismo

• Unstoppable micha cárdenas, Patrisse Cullors, Chris Head and Edxie Betts

• Listen to Black Women Syrus Marcus Ware

• Notes on Sustainable Tools Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, with Suné Woods

• The Mirror Shield Project Cannupa Hanska Luger

• The Human Billboard Project Leah Decter, with Stop Violence Against Aboriginal Women Action Group

Inhalt

1. On Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times: An Introduction; Natalie Alvarez, Claudette Lauzon, and Keren Zaiontz.- 2. Protest After Occupy: Rethinking the Repertoires of Left Activism; Micah White in conversation with Natalie Alvarez and Keren Zaiontz.- 3. Performative Conduct for Precarious Times; Natalie Alvarez and Keren Zaiontz.- 4. Their Dissidence Remains: Lessons from the 2011 Chilean Student Movement; Daniella Wittern-Bush.- 5. Beyond the Strike: Creative Legacies of the 2012 Quebec Student Protests; J.B. Spiegel.- 6. 'After the revolution, who's going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?' Cartoneros and Sanmen in the Age of Financial Crises; Jimena Ortuzar.- 7. Your Trash is my Sustenance: Recycling the Image of 'Waste Pickers'; Carla Melo.- 8. Sustainable Practices on the U.S./Mexico border: InSITE_05, Intervention, and Precarious Communities; Jennie Klein.- 9. Art as Process in Everyday Life; Wilfredo Prieto in conversation with Zaira Zarza.- 10. 'CAVCA buries BIACI': Activating Decolonial Tools in Cartagena de Indias; Kimberly Richards and Martha Herrara-Lasso.- 11. Performance in the Peace Process: Creating Cultural Brigades; Patricia Ariza in conversation with Beatriz Pizano.- 12. Pimicikimak Sovereignty: Cree Sustainability and Hydroelectric Inundation in Northern Manitoba; Jessica Jacobson-Konefall.- 13. Already And: The Art of Indigenous Survivance; Cheryl L'Hirondelle in conversation with Natalie Alvarez and Keren Zaiontz.