Towards an Insurrectionary Imagination
Project details
- Year
- 2024
- Programme
- Bachelor – (de)Fine Art
- Practices
- Honours Programme
- Minor
- Critical Studies
This work interrogates how we can combat the hold that right wing and neoliberal narratives of the future have on our collective imagination and instead reignite our ability to imagine and enact queer-feminist and decolonial futures. Considering the current mood of crisis, anxiety and resignation it seems essential to me to practice imagining and reaffirming our hope by putting these visions in practice and creating little pockets of the futures we dream of in the present.
In Mark Fisher’s ‘Capitalist Realism’ he quotes Fredrick Jameson saying “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. In my thesis I use this as a starting point to ask why it is so difficult for us to imagine a future that does not simply consist of a worsening of our present. I examine liberatory theoretical frameworks such as speculative fiction and glitch feminism, to try and find ideas and tactics that can tear a hole in the fabric of our somewhat dystopian reality.
This theoretical research led me to organizing a series of skillshares and workshops as well as interviewing artist and activist collectives that I believe are experimenting with ways to rebuild a sense of agency through mutual aid and direct action. Some of the workshops included a screening of Chu Lea Chaeng’s Fluido, an adbusting workshop at Anarchist Library Rotterdam and a ‘Day for the Future’ at Buitenplaats Brienenoord that included a speculative futurity zine-making workshop.
The physical work itself currently consists of a house-shaped installation that features fabric panels with four prints on them, as well as two videos. It functions as a space to take in my research – from the videos to the written work and reference material, as well as the zines made by participants during the speculative futurity workshop at Buitenplaats Brienenoord.
To me, it is an experiment in how to document and translate the ephemeral, impermanent experiences that artists and organizers can help create, to a larger audience.
If you would like to take part in or collaborate on facilitating future workshops, take a look at my instagram or send me an email!
@alien.inkss
ailiegieseler@gmail.com