Abstract: In this essay the author develops a concept for his and Edy Poppy's performance, The Trial Against Ourselves (2021). In their ‘utopian’ performance they enact alternatives to contemporary global capitalism. Juridical theatre has a tradition of trying to accomplish this: Augusto Boal (Legislative Theatre) and Milo Rau (The Congo Tribunal) attempt to enact similar alternatives through their re-enactments of injustice and pre-enactments of utopias. In The Criminal Complaint Performance (2018), the forerunner of The Trial Against Ourselves, Blaue & Poppy ‘enacted’ a law against structural violence and ‘pressed charges’ against themselves.
This article invites art workers to critically reassess the long-term effects of their practice on cultural and epistemological development in Europe. It addresses the capacity of curatorial practices to cultivate local epistemologies and encourages a fundamental role for these practices in deconstructing current hegemonies within the art system. The article approaches curatorial practices from positions other than North-Western European, and advocates for a situated model of curatorial practice. In doing so, it sets out to challenge existing definitions of ‘the curatorial’, adopting a multidisciplinary understanding of curatorial practice, while evaluating curatorial methods in light of contemporary geopolitical developments.
The cultural and creative industries have been one of the hardest-hit by the international Covid-19 pandemic.In the wake of this seismic shift, there has been a proliferation of events and publications exploring how artists have responded to living and working in a pandemic.There exists a sense of lamenting those things that seem lost or, at the very least, placed on pause.However, while Covid-19 has undoubtedly had a lasting impact on practitioners, the temporary digitisation of artistic practice has resulted in new possibilities for practice and national / international collaboration.It was this sense of possibility that was the focus of a seminar series recently held at Queen Margaret University, which forefronted the potential positive adaptations within practice research due to Covid-19.Certainly, the cultural and creative domains have been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, but the series aimed to argue that creative practitioners are experts in exploring new ways of thinking and being and suggested that in these difficult times we don't have fewer resources; rather we have different resources.The central thrust of these seminars, therefore, was to reflect on positive changes to practice.
