This book examines how renewed forms of artistic activism were developed in the wake of the neoliberal repression since the 1980s.

The volume shows the diverse ways in which artists have sought to confront systemic crises around the globe, searching for new and enduring forms of building communities and reimagining the political horizon. The authors engage in a dialogue with these artistic efforts and their histories – in particular the earlier artistic activism that was developed during the civil rights era in the 1960s and 70s – providing valuable historical insight and new conceptual reflection on the future of aesthetic resilience.

This book will be of interest to scholars in contemporary art, history of art, film and literary studies, protest movements, and social movements.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Taking Aesthetics from Resistance to Resilience

Bram Ieven, Eliza Steinbock, and Marijke de Valck

Part 1. Resilience: Searching for New Weapons While Fleeing

1. Resilience Thinking, Storytelling and Aesthetic Resilience

Marijke de Valck

2. But does it Work in Theory? Androcentric Blind Spots and Omissions

Hilary Robinson

3. Learning from Documenta: Aesthetic Resilience and the Politics of Institutionalized Art

Bram Ieven

4. Blackout: The Necropolitics of Extraction

T.J. Demos

5. Movement of Movements: Resilient Strategies in the ‘Global South’

Kitty Zijlmans

Part 2. Global Conjunctions of Aesthetic Resilience

6. Of Tricksters and Zombies: Re-imagining Outsideness in Contemporary Russian Activist Art

Ksenia Robbe

7. An Alloy Made from Art and Activism, in North Macedonia

Jon Blackwood

8. Drones and Streets: On the Image Composition of the Tahrir and Gezi Occupations

Begüm Özden Fırat

9. The Resilient City: When Social Activism meets Media Arts in Hong Kong

Isaac Leung

10. Art-activism in Decolonising a South African University Space

Zethu Matebeni

Part 3. Artistic Practices of Embodied Resilience

11. Feminist and Anti-Racist Graffiti: Disrupting Public Space in the 1970s in Britain

Na`ama Klorman-Eraqi

12. The Black Radical: Fungibility, Activism, and Portraiture in These Times

Syrus Marcus Ware

13. Practicing Aesthetic Resilience through Collaboration

Keri Watson

14. Embodied Narratives: Art, Corporeality, and Creative Processes

Ana Cristina Bohrer Gilbert

This book examines how renewed forms of artistic activism were developed in the wake of the neoliberal repression since the 1980s. The volume shows the diverse ways in which artists have sought to confront systemic crises around the globe, searching for new and enduring forms of building communities and reimagining the political horizon. The authors engage in a dialogue with these artistic efforts and their histories - in particular the earlier artistic activism that was developed during the civil rights era in the 1960s and 70s - providing valuable historical insight and new conceptual reflection on the future of aesthetic resilience. This book will be of interest to scholars in contemporary art, history of art, film and literary studies, protest movements, and social movements.