Aesthetic-Dialogical Experiences in Art-Activism

Although art-activism can frequently be associated to artistic collective performances, solitary and silent individual aesthetic experiences can also represent gestures of creative and contestatory intent. By approaching art-activism as an object of study, this essay discusses the dialogic power of works that occupy the public space, changing the relations established in the environment. In that sense, these interactive dynamics are explored through objects and aesthetic events that symbolize, through artistic procedures, both the artist’s creative gesture and his/hers broader discourse and ideals. As a consequence, a relation between art and politics is created, bringing the plastic exploration of the senses to the foreground of the composition, as this essay tried to demonstrate.

Art-Activism; Public Space; Dialogic Interaction; Iconicity; Political Design