Does solidarity have an aesthetics? How would we recognize or define such a thing? How might it challenge our assumptions about what art is and does? Building on Hannah Feldman and Rebecca Johnson’s investigations of “solidarity aesthetics,” this online conference will focus on the formal and stylistic techniques of the literary, visual, and sonic cultures of solidarity activism, setting them in relation to this work’s political commitments and its efforts to catalyze, sustain, and expand particular movements and mobilizations.
In these three virtual panels, participants will discuss the cultural production of both contemporary and past solidarity movements across different historical conjunctures, geographies, genres, and political struggles. This conference is being organized by members of the International Solidarity Action Research Network.
Session 1: Writing and Performing Solidarity
Tuesday, May 7, 9:00 PST/12:00
EST/17:00 London/20:00 Amman
Christopher Berardino, “‘He Was All People and They Were He’: James Joyce’s ‘Epiphany Process’ and Richard Wright’s ‘Innocent Guilt’ in The Man Who Lived Underground”
Paul Jaussen, “The Solidarity Poetics of Public Mourning”
Danielle Drees, “Political Mother: Maternal Solidarity Aesthetics in Regina José Galindo and Bertolt Brecht’s Performances”
Register in advance for this meeting: here.
Session 2: Doing Solidarity
Monday May 20, 9:00 PST/12:00
EST/17:00 London/20:00 Amman
Ricardo Velasco Trujillo, “Building Solidarities and Transforming Institutions with Fabrics:
Activism and Sewing Practices in Colombia’s Center for Memory Peace and Reconciliation”
Hande Gurses, “Recipes for Survival: Solidarity in the Aftermath of Gezi Park”
Crystal Bartolovich, “Of Tables and Mappings: Figures of Solidarity and How They Work”
Register in advance for this meeting: here.
Session 3: Building Usable Pasts
Monday, June 3, 9:00 PST/12:00
EST/17:00 London/20:00 Amman
Estibalitz Ezkerra Vegas, “The Aesthetics of Solidarity: The Representation of Suffering in and through Guernica”
Tayseer Abu Odeh, “Edward Said’s Solidarity Aesthetics and the Politics of Absence”
Annette Lienau, “Transitioning to the 21st century beyond Bandung’s Alliance: Literature and Antiauthoritarianism
between May 1998 (Indonesia) and the Arab Spring (Egypt)”
Register in advance for this meeting: here.
Art by: Marishka Soekarna @drawmama 2024, Palestine Poster Project Archives