The power that art has when it’s used effectively as a sign of protest is what brings the idea to the masses. It can be used in many ways and can be taught to future generations to learn and emancipate, and methods can be reused for other movements and ideas.
In this project of performing reunion and on this theme, each artist will present his own work conceived personally but proposed together, interconnected by a common thread of thoughts and actions; the aim is to put at the center of our productive activities the need for a shared artistic cultural resistance and reaffirm its presence in every place, with every form of language, as outposts of creative freedom in defense of essential cultural and humanistic values.
The art of protest was practiced throughout history to serve, in particular, the anti-war movement in the mid-20th century in particular. Today it has become a powerful and international language suitable for expressing itself against all forms of violation of human rights, against the tangible denial of cultural education and the state of abandonment of art itself. With the arts anti-authoritarian declarations are launched, the different forms of art are used to highlight the fundamental fragility of those who dominate with force, ignorance and false needs and underline how it is possible to act in the global community through exhibitions and shared practices mixing the realities of conflicts with surreal and idealistic backgrounds and on several occasions with music and sound.
Each work becomes a useful tool to offer effective and clear answers to the immobility of the state and the suffering of young people, becomes an instrument of struggle for the right to equal dignity and a quality of life, reignites the attention of the people to “cogito ergo sum” to turn into a powerful voice of communication of dissent and of the necessities of change.
Artists with their own ideas and representations become the essential link to reaffirm a role, the presence in a larger dialogue between protest art of the past and the present, with different means such as books, films, performance art, happenings, shareholding and multimedia. In practice, creative cultural resistance can take a variety of forms on both large and small scales.
Acts of cultural resistance such as installations, events and museum installations, recycling and occupation of contested sites, theater performances, readings, videos of solidarity and performative actions can help overcome political, ideological and cultural differences; using creative resistance becomes a method and a tool for deconstructing tensions between populations of different states, preventing the disastrous effects of war and promoting intercultural understanding. Too often this actively addressing problems is described as a way to promote identity formation and to contribute to a subversive counter-culture that protests and sometimes mocks the constraints of an oppressive and dull dominant culture. Messages and strategies of creative resistance can result in racial, ethnic, class and age barriers to further strengthen and empower people. On the other hand, an activism based on identity or orientation can help a strong social awareness. Some mechanisms may be similar to those of business or marketing models such as that of “strategic cultural evaluation” which implies motivation, identity formation, creation of awareness, creation of new spaces and realization of movement objectives.
The dress we want to wear is to act naked, as kings and queens of the value we represent and which will be represented through the creative actions proposed in the field. Not for the appearance or the shape that power exalts.
Naked by the imposed structures.
Naked.
Free batsmen, promises of the world, avant-gardes of change and positive thinking. M.C.