| Beschreibung |
Rebels Rise, Ridicule Reigns, Power Cries - As Carnival Flames explores different forms of resistance and resilience through Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque. It examines how humour, irony, grotesque imagery, and absurdity become tools to challenge hierarchical structures and oppressive power dynamics, ranging from figures of authority to political systems, from everyday social norms to global corporate control.
Students will investigate the potential of the carnivalesque in everyday life, public space, and artistic practices, focusing on inverting hierarchies and creating alternative narratives in which resistance can be performed, moving beyond conventional methods to embrace playful and subversive strategies.
Interdisziplinarity // This course integrates interdisciplinary approaches to explore resistance through creative and critical lenses. By incorporating site-specific interventions, participatory performance, choreographic methods, guerilla tactics, students will investigate how acts of resistance can be embodied in public spaces. The course examines the spatial, socio-political and personal dimensions of resistance with the concepts from political philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies providing a theoretical framework to critically analyze power structures, systemic violence, and the transformative potential of everyday life.
Through readings, discussions, and hands-on exercises, students will develop their own (or in pairs/groups) interdisciplinary methods for enacting and performing resistance. The course encourages students to reveal and ridicule the false narratives and facades of power, transforming everyday life into a site of playful critique.
Learning Objectives // By the end of the course, students will develop a critical understanding of power structures and the ability to analyze, subvert and hijack the narratives that have been constructed. Participants will explore the carnivalesque as a tool to challenge hierarchies. Through interdisciplinary practices spanning art, architecture, social action, performance, and sociology, students will acquire practical skills in participatory performance, site-specific interventions, spatial mapping and visual representations. The exercises will enable the students to gain bodily awareness and comfort in instrumentalizing the body in an artistic context. The course emphasizes collaboration and collectivity, encouraging students to combine theoretical knowledge with creative interventions and articulate their ideas effectively through visual, performative, and written means.
Didactic Setting // Discussions and Readings: Students will regularly engage with key texts from cultural theory, sociology, and artistic practices to build a theoretical foundation for understanding the carnivalesque and resistance. Group discussions will encourage critical reflection.
Hands-On Exercises and Workshops: Practical exercises, both in and out of class, will allow students to experiment with methods such as participatory performance, choreographic exploration, and site-specific interventions.
Case Studies and Artistic Examples: Analysis of historical and contemporary examples from art, architecture, and resistance movements will provide inspiration and context for students' own projects. Such as Guerrilla Girls, The Yes Men, Center for Political Beauty, Tania Bruguera, Tools for Action, -BP or Not BP?, Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong, The Rebel Clown Army, Tute Bianche, Italy, Pussy Riot, Russia, Gezi Park Protests, Istanbul etc.
A guest lecturer (TBA) will also be taking a place. |
| Literatur |
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. (Chapters on the grotesque body and carnival inversion)
Wong, Kacey. Art of protest: Resisting against absurdity
Halder, Severin. This is not an atlas : a global collection of counter-cartographies
Bismarck, Julius; Charrière, Julian; Ellingsen, Eric and editords. Some Pigeons Are More Equal Than Others
Butler, Judith. Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance
Cvejic, Bojana; Vujanovic, Ana (ed. by TkH). Public Sphere by Performance |
