Imagining Otherwise - Tanzquartier Wien

Read the Manifesto and watch the supporting film here.

In the 1980s, Peter Weiss wrote his Aesthetics of Resistance, a novel about the educational standards of the working class and acts of resistance during the reign of European fascism, in which he made popular the term ‘artistic research’ and provided an alternative reading of our cultural history. This lab will draw on Weiss’s theory by re-examining questions like: How could resistant aesthetics and an aesthetics of resistance look like today? In what ways can we use the arts to connect people and oppose division and nationalist tendencies? How can art help build a community, and what strategies can be developed that do not simply find fault with the status quo but provide alternative pathways?

Theoretical framework: by Janine Jembere

Lab realised and led by: Tonica Hunter
Participants: Ulduz Ahmadzadeh, Ayo Aloba, Ina Aydogan, Faris Cuchi Gezahegn, Klara Kostal, Efua Jarvis, Imani Rameses, Adia Trischler

Presentation to the public on 14th November 2020:

Over the past week – in a series of online zoom calls due to Covid-19 restrictions on cultural events – I brought together creatives, activists, community and cultural workers and performers to work in an online artistic research lab conceptualised by Janine Jembere.

Taking the Aesthetics of Resistance (Peter Weiss, 1975) as a starting point, the group decided to place their expressions in the format of an artistic manifesto; allowing both for a public declaration of ideas and aims in their work(s) now and going forward s well as suggesting ideas for reflection and reform in the arts and cultural sector more broadly. Each written, visual, performative or conceptual element therein represents a demand to reimagine resistance.