The present environmental crisis has put the public war between current right-wing authoritarian governs and whoever in the world is concerned about the environment in the international spotlight....Show moreThe present environmental crisis has put the public war between current right-wing authoritarian governs and whoever in the world is concerned about the environment in the international spotlight. Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, on June 1, 2017 and the recent refusal of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro to stop the exploitation of Amazon illustrate the emergence of a situation in which the notions of territory and nation-state no longer sustain the reality of our shared planet. The more climate change, global warming and the environmental degradation haunt the Earth’s inhabitants, the more it seems that we break apart the world as if boundaries of exclusion could prevent what is inside from perishing. In this thesis, I argue that, in the core of this issue, dwell precisely our ‘notions’ and ‘concepts’—enclosed in the huge monolith of Western modern thinking. To confront the planetary crisis, one needs a new strategy to access these problems—that would not consist in simply applying a dialectical method of discussion, but instead deploying a multidimensional approach, capable of penetrating that Western bloc from all sides. By taking on the notion of networks—whether informatic, political and biological—I critically analyse this concept and introduce the framework of the ‘swarm’ that I used in my own artistic practice as a way to allow a multiplicity of viewpoints. The art project Game of Swarms, which explores mainly the fact that the individuals of swarms work together without a locus of control, provokes the audience to rethink our current political structures and use the narrative of the game to imagine new forms of making politics and a new way to think our relation to the world. The biological self-organised model of swarms comes as a tool to create new narratives to face today’s planetary crisis and foster a more sustainable way of thinking.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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Abstract The German exhibition documenta is inarguably one of the most well-known perennial exhibitions worldwide and takes part every four to five years in Kassel (Germany). The topic discussed in...Show moreAbstract The German exhibition documenta is inarguably one of the most well-known perennial exhibitions worldwide and takes part every four to five years in Kassel (Germany). The topic discussed in this MA thesis, is the 14th edition of documenta and its partial re-location to Athens (Greece) in 2017. This thesis is a critical examination of stereotypical assumptions about Greece’s past that were included in the discourse of the exhibition, and manifested through the public program Exercises of Freedom and the artwork The Parthenon of Books by Marta Minujín. Additionally, these case studies were analyzed based on their common participatory factor using theories of spectatorship by Claire Bishop and Jacques Rancière. This research demonstrates that the documenta14, in the cases of these artworks, conceptualized greek past through the dominant Eurocentric framework.Show less
Latin American modernism(s) has always attracted the attention of art historians because of its historical context of colonialism and highly syncretized culture. Its arts show how different forces,...Show moreLatin American modernism(s) has always attracted the attention of art historians because of its historical context of colonialism and highly syncretized culture. Its arts show how different forces, intrinsic or extraneous, converge and interact to result in what is deemed Latin American modern art today. Haiti, being a Creole-speaking country which is mainly composed of African descendants, cannot always find an appropriate place within this discussion. The two historical accounts of modern art - that of Latin America and that of the Caribbean - intersect but do not collaborate to form a coherent narration. What is the more urgent problem here is that Haitian modern art is hardly defined or described. This thesis examines the art of Haiti after the 1930s and arrives at the conclusion that the ethos of community could be utilized to characterize the idiosyncrasy of Haitian modern culture. Community permeates in every aspects of Haitian modern life: from society, economics, to politics and religion. The artworks of Préfète Duffaut (1923-2012) and Laurent Casimir (1928-1990) reveal how community is depicted in oil paintings and how this theme is related to the social and economic life of Haiti. The participatory art of Joëlle Ferly (1970- ) and the photographic series of Josué Azor (1987- ) show how community is established in the religious life of Haiti. The theory of the ethos of modernism by American art historian Esther Gabara, the concept of “other modernisms” by Australian art historian John Clark and the theory about participatory art by Claire Bishop are examined here and form the general analytical structure of this thesis. The research is based on a careful reading of the historical documents and scholarly works which explain the significance of community for Haiti and on a series of art historical literature which visualize the development of Haitian art from the 1930s until recent years.Show less
