State in Time Workshop: The Crisis of Oppositional Politics Today
Thu, Mar 16, 2017
6:30 PM–8:30 PM
The James Gallery
This workshop opens up a space to discuss the upsurge of mobilizations in response to Trump, Brexit and the rise of far-right nationalism across the globe by asking: What do oppositional politics and resistance mean and look like during a time when Trumpism and its European bedfellows are colonizing the notion of radical change and being anti-establishment, taking meaning to its very limit? How can and do we need to interrogate, rethink, and rejuvenate practices of “critique” and “resistance,” of being “radical,” “in opposition,” and “in solidarity”? What unexpected and complementary strategies and actions could be developed? Where might common cause be found between bitterly divided communities, insulated in geographical, political and cultural echo chambers, who are each convinced of “being right” and view one another with increasing suspicion and anger? How can a broader movement be created by determining not only what it is fighting against, but also what it stands for? What is the role of art and imagination in this process?
This public workshop is developed as part of the upcoming James Gallery exhibition “NSK State Art: New York, The Impossible Return” and will bring together international “State in Time” citizen-artists, students and faculty from the Graduate Center, Guttman Community College and other CUNY colleges, as well as artists, community organizers, journalists, activists, including Tanzeem Ajmiri, Vincent Crapanzano, Eda Čufer, Suzanne Herrera, Robin McGinty, and more.
Organized by James Sevitt and Katherine Carl.
Cosponsored by the Teaching and Learning Center and the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY.