In a world marked by conflict and division, art continues to be a powerful tool for resistance, reflection, and care. How are artists and institutions confronting war, grief, and social tensions through their work today? Public art serves as a way to preserve collective memory by bearing witness and archiving the present moment in time, artistic dissent as a form of protest, and artistic intervention as an act of care – the key themes deserving better analysis in this context. Art documents these struggles in empathy-driven, humanising means, fosters solidarity, and sparks critical conversations. In these turbulent times, creative expression is a vital force for holding difficult conversations and centring the peripheries encouraging longer-term change.
To help understand it, we’ll mostly draw on examples centred around Ukraine and Palestine coming from Poland as its unique position to both makes it an invaluable and multifaceted focal point. With its loaded historical, current political, and societal positionality in relationship with both contexts. Its peripheral identification (not quite “East”, not quite “West” enough). Its own portions of undealt history in relationship with Ukraine (such as the Volhynian Massacre, often described as the Achilles heel of Ukrainian-Polish relations) and arguably with Palestine due to the connections between WWII, the Holocaust, and the establishment of the State of Israel resulting in the Nakba and the decades of devastation to follow.
Just as the examples in the article are from various positionalities of an “Other” or outside perspective, through our observations of these examples, we are invited to take part in forms of care in an attempt to disrupt a social order rife with growing conformity, collective amnesia, and apathy. What does it mean for those outside of a given historical, national, or cultural context to meaningfully contribute to discourse around a war or conflict? What are the direct (or implicit) levels of responsibility and what might solidarity look like? How can (or should) wars and conflicts impact the arts community and vice versa? And why does creative conversation around these unfolding events from the peripheries of impact matter?
The art of noticing and bearing witness
This act of mindful observation not only sharpens our understanding but also builds a deeper sense of empathy and connection. In moments of crisis or injustice, bearing witness can become more than just watching – it turns into a moral responsibility, even a form of resistance. Yet, in today’s world, where distractions are everywhere, how do we cultivate the art of active listening and seeing? In violently colonised war-torn regions, such as Palestine and Ukraine, bearing witness is far more than an abstract idea – it carries significant, dire consequences, it is not just an abstract concept but has real implications.
For some context – in May 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Hamas leaders in Palestine, alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing them of war crimes following the events of October 2023. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia presents its own challenges for justice, with debates over the creation of a special tribunal to address Russia’s aggression since neither Russia nor Ukraine is part of the ICC. The case of Ukraine has its own complexity in gaining clarity on how the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, alleged war crimes, and other international crimes can be recognised within the ICC. As the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression in Ukraine, efforts to create a “Special Tribunal for the punishment of the crime of aggression against Ukraine” have been a subject of deliberation. Both Ukraine and Russia are not parties to the Rome Statute and Russia can veto any decision at the UN Security Council, with Ukraine seeking to join the ICC [the article was written in the summer of 2024, completed in September 2024; hence, does not include more recent developments]. These evolving statuses and recognitions within the international community call into question past forms of archiving and documenting how, when, where, and who we bear witness to atrocities near and far and how we have arrived at current approaches.
For most of human history, our ability to bear witness to the events of other parts of the world was next to none and arguably, not something understood to be within our grasp. Not until the invention of the camera did this even become a possibility. In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Susan Sontag touches on this phenomenon of the camera and encapsulates the intersection of documenting through creative means. She describes how, for a long time, there was a belief that if the horror of war, violence, and death could be made vivid enough, most people would eventually recognise the insanity and madness of war. She also explores the relationships between spectator and victim/perpetrator and how our distance to war has rapidly dwindled with the invention of photography, television, the internet, and social media now that we can see war up close. “[O]ne person’s ‘barbarian’ is another person’s ‘just doing what everybody else is doing”, she says. “Whatever people feel safe (…) they will be indifferent”.
Public space: a canvas for political protest
These geopolitical structures often come into contact with the artistic community through forms of public art and protest, as the art of bearing witness can demand new ways of seeing in a time when our attention is the most sought-after commodity. Public space encompasses all those parts of the built and natural environment to which the public has free access. It encompasses all the streets, squares and other rights of way, whether predominately in residential, commercial, or community/civic uses – all the “public/private” spaces where public access is unrestricted. When considering what public art means and entails, it is more difficult to define clearly. Public art, according to the Association for Public Art, is “a reflection of how we see the world – the artist’s response to our time and place combined with our sense of who we are” and is not an art “form” restricted by size or shape.
Public art, throughout history, has evolved alongside societal changes. From ancient architecture to contemporary street art, its role has shifted from representing a singular public identity to provoking dialogue, questioning assumptions, and addressing divisive social issues. The romanticised idea that public art can meet the needs and expectations of a diverse audience has long since faded. Yet public art is no longer expected to be permanent; many installations are designed for limited durations, while older monuments and statues are being removed, relocated, or reinterpreted in response to decolonisation and de-communisation efforts. This shift reflects a broader rethinking of public art’s role in shaping memory, space, and meaning, as defined by the Americans for the Arts organisation. The audience’s role has also changed from passive observation to active participation. Public art now invites interaction, allowing individuals and communities to engage with its meaning and purpose. This engagement fosters debate and controversy, seen as positive signs that public space and its artistic expressions are being acknowledged and discussed.
There are many examples of intersections of public art with protest, performance, and political discourse that come together to bear witness. One of them took place in Wrocław, where a group of pro-Palestinian activists staged a “die-in” protest to commemorate tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, as reported by Al Jazeera English. Artist Mo Tomaszewska organised a 24-hour solidarity performance leading up to the public protest to create a handcrafted 7-metre Palestinian flag to hang near a “peaceful occupation by students of the University of Wroclaw”. This work evolved in multiple collective stages, involving a myriad of support from local stakeholders ranging from food, sewing supplies, transportation, and participants helping create the work and performance, organisers, documentation, and more. This one case highlights the power of bearing witness not (only) in solitude but in the community – and how powerful that noticing can be when in the company of others.
Whether through movement, repetition, symbols, or all of the above, the meaning-making devices we use in protest and with art come together to invite – and even demand – participation in unexpectedly compelling ways.
In her article Forms of Protest, Tools of Dissent for Widok, Magda Szcześniak from the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw summarises the “impossibility of articulating the voice of the people” with research from Hito Steryerl and breaking down protest on two levels. First, “articulation entails finding a language of protest, the vocalisation, the verbalisation, or the visualisation of political protest”. Second, “articulation also shapes the structure or internal organisation of protest movements”. Whether through movement, repetition, symbols, or all of the above, the meaning-making devices we use in protest and with art come together to invite – and even demand – participation in unexpectedly compelling ways. Consider how even just a flag has transformed from a traditional symbol of a nation and a people to forms of resistance and care. Whether it be combinations of colours, patterns, textures, or initially unrelated images (e.g. a watermelon and a horizon line of sky and field) have arguably become synonymous for many of us with these flags, communities, and causes.
A universal voice for difficult questions
As we bear witness to the events happening to others or around us, archiving and documenting the present for the preservation of tomorrow’s fickle memory through material culture becomes evidence of not just what is taking place, but who is watching it take place. Creative expression is a tool to meaningfully witness history unfolding in front of us, giving agency even with barriers of physical distance, undemocratic propaganda systems, and censorship.
Banksy, an anonymous England-based street artist and activist who emerged in the 1990s and has been active through the new millennium is an iconic example of the intersection of the art of noticing, both as the initiator of work and inviting those who witness the work to take notice of not just the piece itself, but what the work represents. They are known for raising money for social and political causes, including through more traditional means of auctioning work that sold for $23.1 million for UK healthcare organisations as well as through more grassroots methods such as selling t-shirts in support of anti-racist protests, who were arrested for toppling a statue of a slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol. Banksy has also been an active figure globally and specifically (alleged) artistic intervention in solidarity with Palestine and Ukraine, whether over the last few decades with Palestine or with seven murals in Ukraine more recently. These include pieces in cities impacted by Russia’s airstrikes, such as Borodynaka, with depictions of a gymnast doing a handstand on a pile of rubble and of a young boy flipping an older man onto his back. “This is such a historic moment for our country that people like Banksy and other famous figures are coming here and showing the world what Russia has done to us”, notes a visitor who travelled from Kyiv just to see the murals in person.
Some of Banksy’s arguably most famous work took place in Palestine in 2005, under the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with pieces on the Barrier, such as Rage, the Flower Thrower and Flying Balloon Girl. This led to an open exhibition in Bethlehem in 2007, providing a means for visitors to experience the situation through a witness’s lens while raising funds for children in the area. In response to criticisms and accusations of vandalism and artist arrests, Banksy asks, “How illegal is it to vandalise a wall if the wall itself has been deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice?”. Banksy has been credited with helping shift Western opinion on the West Bank Wall in unexpected and critical ways. That said, reception varies for those directly impacted by the occupation. One common sentiment can be synthesised in an exchange Banksy has with an elderly Palestinian man, who told Banksy it made the wall look beautiful, which he noted, “We don’t want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall. Go home”. This calls into question the delicate balance of “awareness campaigns”, finding a balance of the how and why of artistic work aimed at bearing witness while ensuring that the interests of those directly impacted by what’s taking place is prioritised, not exoticised. Particularly when the work remains, but the artist does not.
The ability to make room in individual hearts and minds, let alone for communities or countries for competing perspectives and nuanced truths requires a tremendous capacity to embrace discomfort and “both/and” ways of looking at history and the present – for which art provides a much-needed vehicle to practice with a “fail forward” approach.
Art can be an outlet to ask questions we often are unable or unwilling to articulate. It permits us to be uncomfortable and often demands this of us as it has a most terrifyingly powerful way of reminding us that as much as we all can show up with those suffering, we are all equally susceptible to dehumanising each other by serving as a multi-pronged archive of the human experience – with all its flaws, horrors, and dissonance. Paired with the comforting reminder that our capacity to show up for one another and seek common ground in our efforts to understand and be understood through creative expression often starts with just one intervention. Reminding ourselves that as fearful as we are of what is unfamiliar or different – and as often as we let that fear fester in a false sense of scarcity and that one’s safety is contingent on the malicious removal of others safety – is our universal need to be seen, heard, and known by one another. The ability to make room in individual hearts and minds, let alone for communities or countries for competing perspectives and nuanced truths requires a tremendous capacity to embrace discomfort and “both/and” ways of looking at history and the present – for which art provides a much-needed vehicle to practice with a “fail forward” approach.
The Art of Dissent
In a decade not yet halfway done, but marked by violence and suffering that is equal parts heightened to new proportions and also many decades in the making, the need to find ways through that bring us closer together rather than continuing on the trajectory of polarisation is an ever-growing concern.
The Art of Dissent encompasses a rich tapestry of expressions that extend even beyond traditional forms of protest or vocal disagreement to consider multiple avenues for making our way through these times. What does dissent look like in quieter, more subtle forms, and how can it manifest in everyday actions and choices? Understanding when dissent is necessary involves navigating personal and societal risks, as the stakes can be high for those who challenge the status quo. In this context, art, storytelling, and creativity emerge as powerful tools for dissent, allowing individuals and communities to articulate their grievances and envision alternatives without resorting to (direct) confrontation. By pushing against systems of power from a place of empathy, we can cultivate a dissent that is not only transformative but also inclusive, fostering dialogue and collaboration in the pursuit of a more just and equitable world.
The evolution of artistic activism, or “artivism”, reflects a significant transformation influenced by social media and the contemporary landscape of civil protest as a pervasive form of dissent within the art world. According to the article From Action Art to Artivism on Instagram in the “Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies”, the term artivism emerged from the anti-cultural movements of May 1968, now redefined through the lens of platforms like Instagram, which facilitate a delocalised yet interconnected geography of protest. This urban, socially engaged art serves to engage a younger audience, reshaping how art and activism intersect. Meanwhile, On ‘Artivism,’ or Art’s Utility in Activism by Suzanne Nossel highlights the often-overlooked potential of art to inspire collective change, arguing that artists and activists alike must assess the effectiveness of their creative endeavours in fostering new perspectives. The ERC ARTIVISM project’s multidisciplinary research further emphasises this point, focusing on how various art forms are employed by activists to articulate political claims across diverse urban environments. By utilising an event-based methodology, the project underscores the significance of creativity and performance as subversive tools in a world marked by increasing censorship and control, revealing how independent political performances can challenge prevailing narratives and inspire civic engagement.
Finally, a simple, but (r)evolutionary shift in the artistic community on the relationship between art, dissent, and resistance continues to take centre stage. As beautifully summarised by Anna Stetsenko in her article Creativity as Dissent and Resistance: Transformative Approach Premised on Social Justice Agenda – at its heart, creativity, much like freedom, is rooted in dissent, resistance, disagreement, and critique. It involves pushing beyond the boundaries of what is accepted and breaking down the status quo and its established structures. Every human interaction and action is unique and innovative, and cannot be replicated. In this sense, the study of creativity, which often adheres to conventional frameworks, has the potential to be transformed in ways that question and challenge the very myths surrounding its origins.
Moreover, “Creativity is thus akin to defiance and disobedience, even rebellion, on a par with the revolutionary energy of transformative agency that furnishes our world and is the province not of the select few but of all human beings”. This is a nonlinear nature of progress, despite all our best efforts to create retrospective parallels of societal and artistic revolutions. The messiness of the how and when of acts of dissent often don’t fit into a neat box and narrative, but as an inherently creative tool, many viewpoints and agencies come together to foster collective transformation over time. And that often, even the smallest everyday experiences and consistent dynamic challenging of given norms prompt new dialogue and suggest alternative routes of reality.
Curating dissent across contexts
Some institutions highlight a collective and institutional approach around dissent and resistance. They are imperfect in varying degrees of historic and often contemporary complicity but are hopeful prototypes of failing forward as artistic institutions reconcile with their histories of imperialism, colonialism, and supremacist mentality.
Like the Dislocations and Past Disquiet exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The former explores how individuals and communities navigate the fractures and instability of today’s world through the work of fifteen artists from various generations and positionalities (Afghanistan, France, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar, Palestine, Syria, and Ukraine). Through various forms of contemporary art, the exhibition examines themes of displacement, identity, and the fluidity of the experience of exile – both physical and psychological, past and present. The artworks reflect how global crises, social upheavals, and personal struggles lead to a sense of dislocation, pushing people to adapt, resist, or reimagine their surroundings. By engaging with these disruptions, the exhibition invites viewers to confront the complexities of dislocation and explore the potential for transformation within it, highlighting “narratives that combine displacement, imprisonment, and war with resilience and reparation”.
A particularly compelling description of the exhibition includes:
“At a time when international geopolitical developments are an ever-changing palimpsest of times and spaces in crisis, artists can appear as lookouts, careful to the world’s upheavals and society’s major movements that are as many telluric waves. To be a lookout is to be a witness of one’s time, to deploy the power of one’s imagination by exploring the social and political realities of yesterday, today and tomorrow”.
The latter is a documentary and archival exhibition that explores the political activism and solidarity of artists involved in the international anti-imperialist movement from the 1960s to the 1980s. Initiated in 2008 by researchers Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti, the exhibition highlights the overlooked global stories of four “museums in exile” or “museums in solidarity”. These touring exhibitions symbolised the universal support of artists for liberation struggles, including those of the Palestinian and Nicaraguan people, opposition to Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, and resistance against apartheid in South Africa.
The Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) touches on the intersection of the museum, artistic expression, social movements, and creating spaces for human connection in its exhibition Song for Many Movements: Scenes of Collection Creation. Described as “an ephemeral experiment in which the ground floor of the museum becomes a stage for encounters, conversations and shared listening”, it seeks to create a sensory experience to engage us to be present, together, and in solidarity through many forms of “holding one another and in the ongoing rehearsals of ways of being together”. It provides a unique lens to examine the power of collective action and creativity in shaping social and political change. The role of art in mobilising communities and inspiring movements across different historical contexts is showcased in the contemporary context and over many years, contexts, and means. Through a diverse range of media, the exhibition celebrates how art can serve as a catalyst for collective transformation and social movements.
The Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland, highlights these issues through a more intimate lens of family and parenthood “interpreted as a process fitting economies of social care and generosity” in their exhibition Radical Parenthood. Taking a global scope – ranging from climate change to geopolitical conflict – it remarks on how and where institutional systems often fail to keep up. The exhibition focuses on how the uniquely challenging and evolving reality system solutions are struggling to adapt and speak to the war-torn realities on many of our doorsteps, whether it be the devastation in Palestine and Ukraine as well as climate, epidemics, geopolitical, humanitarian, and migration crises. Through the emphasis that parenting practices contribute to children’s development across emotional, intellectual, social, physical, and ethical well-being, it also stresses the importance of parental self-care – like putting on one’s own life jacket before helping someone else with theirs.
These exhibitions encompass numerous artworks spanning time, media, and scale, suggesting that to bear witness is a multipronged, intersectional, active, and ongoing choice to be made that demands time and attention. They also speak to co-existing hard truths – that even populations indoctrinated in imperialist ideology (e.g. arguably the West, seemingly unaware of the indirect harm they are both inflicting and victim, too) are complicit. Due to their benefiting from the status quo, what incentive do they have to change what is working in their favour? This standing, many might also feel (and in many real ways are) unable to make any dent of difference, even if they wanted to. Perhaps because that would require reconstructing the systems of power in place that they benefit from as much as suffer within, but at least it feels familiar. Familiarity can be a source of comfort, however painful and harmful. If there was no benefit being had, wouldn’t there be an effort to change the norm?
Artist communities can model collective responsibility in unexpected ways. Whether it be through co-creation and collaboration, engagement, and experimentation, or propelling alternative frameworks for social and civic participation, we can see this on display in these specific examples as well as many others. The act of gathering many forms of intervention over time and space and showcasing them in one unit is a form of dissent– rejecting the artist as the (only) sole creator and inviting collective intervention to create a bigger conversation. Artist communities frequently engage in collection creation, where the process itself becomes a form of shared responsibility. This can involve communal decision-making, skill or knowledge-sharing, and collective problem-solving, which mirrors back a microcosm of how responsibility can be distributed across groups of society. To that end, many artists feel a deep sense of responsibility to be involved in social justice and activism. Through iterations of artivism, they touch upon issues across environmental justice, human rights, de-colonial practices, and political freedom, just to name a few. By using their art to bring attention to these causes, they model one of many ways in which communities can take responsibility for the social issues around them and advocate for change.
Another possibly more radical assurance includes how artists can model alternative economies. Artists choosing to be active in their creative communities and local contexts often challenge traditional capitalist frameworks by experimenting with new forms of economic organisation. This can take many forms, a few being sharing the mental load and labour to grassroots practices or organising to bartering to time-banking or even gift economies. This not only fosters communal interdependence but also models how responsibility for economic sustainability can be shared in non-hierarchical ways. Another form of modelling includes, once again, the relationship between art and public space, but moving a step further into civic responsibility. Artists are more and more creating works in public spaces that engage their communities directly, encouraging reflection on local to global issues. Through these interventions, they model how communities can take responsibility for shaping public discourse and shared physical spaces for the safety and enjoyment of all.
The act of gathering many forms of intervention over time and space and showcasing them in one unit is a form of dissent– rejecting the artist as the (only) sole creator and inviting collective intervention to create a bigger conversation.
The Art of Care(full) Intervention
In exploring the Art of Care(full) Intervention, we confront the complex dynamics of when and how to engage in a given situation. How do we decide when intervention is necessary versus when stepping back may yield more productive outcomes? As our attention is continually monetized and abused, how can we carefully select where we place our attention? This deliberation often hinges on empathy, prompting us to ask: what role does empathy play in determining the most appropriate way to intervene in a conflict or crisis? Thoughtfully designed interventions have the potential to address harm while avoiding the perpetuation of new forms of violence or control. In this context, we must consider how interventions can themselves become acts of care – carried out in ways that are respectful, responsible, and attuned to the needs of those involved. Furthermore, cultural contexts significantly shape our understanding of intervention, leading us to reflect on how care-full intervention might manifest differently across diverse communities.
And how can care be a form of resistance, and what’s its relationship with creative intervention? There is no singular form of resistance. Dissent demands many forms. As Magda Szcześniak describes further in an issue of View: Theories and Practices of Visual Culture on protesting images – creative intervention of protest operates in various environments and uses differing media, with no one explanation or claim for which form of dissent is best, but rather encouraging a slew of means. And while “images do not substitute protest, they can be a form of protest”.
Simply put, practices of care can be defined as personal, political, and collective. It calls for sustainable, accessible practices across all axes, such as academia, activism, culture, education, human rights, social justice, and technology. A care-full approach creates intentional space for historically marginalised voices, ensuring that care is rooted in equity, fundamental rights, and human dignity while remaining adaptable to individual needs. Care involves active listening, empathy, and mutual responsiveness to the needs of others on personal, cultural, social, and political levels.
A care-full approach creates intentional space for historically marginalised voices, ensuring that care is rooted in equity, fundamental rights, and human dignity while remaining adaptable to individual needs.
Care carries different meanings depending on one’s position – scholarly research, feminist economics, sociology, critical development studies, queer ecology, and decolonial approaches interrogate the concept of care from diverse perspectives. In activism, collective care supports social justice efforts, where well-being is critical to driving change. Advocacy frames care as a political act, a fundamental right that requires a holistic approach to achieve social justice. The stories we tell, how we tell them, and who narrates them are crucial in practising care. These narratives influence the checks and balances of democracy, equity in human rights, and the upholding of pluralism, as seen across local, national, and international contexts.
Democratising public space through art
At the same time, the notion of care demands critique. Where do we need to reassess or decolonise the concept? Who is excluded from conversations about care? Who benefits when there is a lack of care? It is essential to examine instances where care is absent and to understand the implications for democracy and equity. Those in privileged positions must reflect on their blind spots, recognising who needs to step back, who is being overlooked, and whose voices need to lead in reimagining care.
Two artists who encapsulate artistic intervention through a care-full and care-forward approach are Monika Drożyńska and Ai Weiwei. Drożyńska is a Polish artist working across photography, installation, video, and embroidery as a writing technique. Her work often intersects with public space, posing new transformations and dynamics of social dynamics and relations. Ai Weiwei is an internationally renowned Chinese contemporary artist and activist – a vocal advocate of art as a means of intervention around and for democracy, freedom, and particularly around migration and refugee crises.
Drożyńska’s project Embracing, created in collaboration with a Ukrainian artist Łada Nakoneczna, is part of the exhibition Ukraine. A Different Angle on Neighbourhood. The two artists collaborated at the National Art Museum of Ukraine to produce an installation reflecting the close relationship between Poland and Ukraine. Their artistic practices focus on observing social experiences in Ukraine, Poland, and Europe, exploring themes shaped by the global economy, nationality, language, and the body. The Embracing project combines installation and performance, with the artists working independently but agreeing on material colour and size. The central theme is the proximity of the two countries, reflecting on their shared history and current communication possibilities. The project was first presented in September 2024 at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv and will be included in the exhibition at the International Cultural Center in Kraków, supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Fund.
Much of Drożyńska’s work emphasises more ephemeral interventions, particularly with her textile pieces she embroiders in trains across Poland. They are often taken from various historical phrases from Polish, Ukrainian, and Old Biblical Hebrew layered with irony, identity, and the role of language in propaganda, often weaving feminist, Kabbalah, and overheard conversations about the state of the world. One of many of these train pieces includes an embroidered work with stitching spelling out “Ceasefire Now!” and “All I want for Christmas is cease fire”.
In the case of Ai Weiwei, his own experiences in a labour camp with his father and persecution for his criticism of his home country’s government have led to prison time and a life in exile. His work often holds new and evolving resonance as time goes on, with work from one context holding all too poignant meaning with evolving conflicts and wars. In the case of his sculpture entitled Arch from 2017, installed in Stockholm in 2022, the work took on new meaning, first with the COVID-19 pandemic and then with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The piece encompasses a 40 ft tall arch wave-made cage-like structure, with two human figure silhouettes carved into the entryway. He describes that “against such a backdrop this work is once again a warning and reminder”.
At his biggest retrospective exhibition to date entitled “In Search of Humanity” at the Albertina Modern gallery in Vienna, taking place shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, he shared his thoughts on how it uncovers the “shaking foundation” of democracy and how it surfaces our underlying fears of the “ so-called peaceful life since World War Two”. Encapsulating the concept of holding multiple truths at once, Weiwei simultaneously commented on the “unacceptable” act Russia committed, as well as his concern about the growing polarization and harkening back to the unproductive nature of a “Cold War psychology”.
Weiwei has often spoken on Israel-Palestine in support of Palestinians throughout his career. In 2016, he interviewed refugees in Gaza for a documentary on the world refugee crisis. Global in scope, it took the artist from Europe to the Middle East to meet with migrants. Reports from that time indicated nearly 41 million internally displaced persons, and during his time in Gaza, he met with Palestinians facing displacement from the wave of devastation from the escalation in 2014. More recently, he’s been in the spotlight for speaking out on the cancellation of an exhibition of his work at Lisson Gallery. In November 2023, following a post (subsequently deleted) he made on the social media platform X, Weiwei spoke with Hyperallergic to condemn the “soft violence aimed at stifling voices” around Israel-Palestine.
“The sense of guilt around the persecution of the Jewish people has been, at times, transferred to offset the Arab world. Financially, culturally, and in terms of media influence, the Jewish community has had a significant presence in the United States. The annual $3bn aid package to Israel has, for decades, been touted as one of the most valuable investments the United States has ever made. This partnership is often described as one of shared destiny”.
He went on to describe the disastrous consequences “when a society cannot withstand diverse voices” and the jarring irony of holding an exhibition that makes space for “inherently political” work and then forcing “self-censorship” of artists that contradicts this opportunity, especially in a moment needing a variety of places at the table. In another commentary on the fallout of his own exhibition cancellation in the weeks and months to follow, Weiwei said how art penetrates the concentration of uniformity so critical in the maintenance of power and authoritarianism and spoke of the parallels he’s seeing in the current political climate with his lifetime of adversity navigating oppression discrimination and censorship. In response to the question of how artists should navigate a world of increasing censorship, he responds with “speak your thoughts loudly, without considering the consequences”.
Art bridging borders through collaboration
Artistic intervention, particularly when explored through collective and collaborative platforms, transcends individual expression to engage broader audiences, provoke dialogue, and challenge established norms. International art fairs, like Art Dubai and Art Paris, serve as powerful examples of such platforms, while not without its blindspots and biases, fostering creative engagement across diverse cultural and geographic boundaries. These fairs not only showcase individual artistic works but also act as spaces for meaningful exchange, where artists, curators, and audiences come together to reflect on pressing social, political, and economic realities.
In regions marked by historical complexity, such as the Middle East and Europe, how do these art fairs contribute to redefining narratives and reshaping global perceptions? By positioning themselves at the intersection of art, politics, and society, Art Dubai and Art Paris invite us to consider how artistic intervention at the international level can ignite change, question power structures, and foster solidarity across regions often in conflict. How might these interventions help us imagine alternative futures, where creativity bridges gaps between nations, communities, and individuals?
Art Dubai 2024 tackled aspects of both regions and the broader geopolitical sphere in question with two headline exhibitions. The Bawwaba exhibition, meaning “gateway” in Arabic, curated by Emiliano Valdés, Chief Curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Medellin and Associate Curator for the 10th Gwangju Biennale, featured 10 solo presentations by artists from the Global South, showcasing works created in the past year or conceived specifically for this fair. The exhibition highlighted art as a space for reckoning and healing, addressing social and political issues while fostering critical dialogue and a sense of community. Through diverse mediums, the artists explored art’s role as a catalyst for change and transformation, examining how these processes vary across different regions. In his curatorial statement, Valdés described that “in this context, the Bawwaba section of Art Dubai 2024 presents a series of artistic practices that explore healing on a personal and spiritual level but also a social, historical and political level to examine how these varying scales of the healing process relate; these bodies of work examine the ways in which art can function as a catalyst for transformation and change”.
Art Dubai Modern, curated by Dr Christianna Bonin, Assistant Professor of Art History at the American University of Sharjah, focused on the cultural dynamics that shaped the contemporary Global South. The section highlighted how post-World War II geopolitical shifts fostered intricate cultural connections, particularly through Cold War-era exchanges that saw many artists from these regions study in Soviet metropoles. Reflecting the diverse nature of these relationships, the exhibition featured artists from Central and South Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Bonin unpacks the intersectionality of “seemingly distant and distinct” places ranging from Uganda, Syria, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, sharing that “it invites consideration of connections that transcend existing geopolitical borders, instead linking East to East and South to South”.
Lamunière went so far as to note that, “at a time when geographic super entities are endeavouring to establish their hegemony, other smaller entities draw attention and resonate with the zeitgeist. The minority can become the majority and the art scene continues to evolve as does the world itself”.
Art Paris, although less directly, spoke to many peripheries of these issues and areas of the world in its 2024 edition. Out of Bounds, curated by independent curator Simon Lamunière, explored contemporary art through the lens of multiethnicity and cultural hybridisation. Featuring works by around twenty international artists selected from exhibiting galleries, the show addressed themes of origins, gender, kinship, history, and geography. Lamunière’s approach emphasised how today’s art scenes are shaped by both unique individuals and cultural communities engaged in constant, confrontational exchanges. These encounters reflect shifting conflicts, redefinitions of countries, and the omnipresence of diversity. The exhibition highlighted how minority voices can resonate with broader societal changes, reflecting an evolving global art scene. Lamunière went so far as to note that, “at a time when geographic super entities are endeavouring to establish their hegemony, other smaller entities draw attention and resonate with the zeitgeist. The minority can become the majority and the art scene continues to evolve as does the world itself”.
Renegotiating the past for the needs of today
The capacity to sit in historically informed nuance and decolonial thought and reject false dichotomies is one that artists invite through narrative disruption and storytelling. Artists can create and often do create works that highlight the complexity of global struggles through localised contexts, showing the historical and political nuances behind conflicts. By telling the stories of both Palestine and Ukraine, for example, we can begin to draw attention to common themes of ongoing oppression, the pervasiveness of colonialism, the complicity of the West, forced displacement, and genocide, encouraging those engaging in the work to see beyond false binaries and fostering empathy for multiple struggles at once. Art can be a means to bridge seemingly opposing positions for many based on a common enemy and allies’ mentalities and uncovering the lethal common threads of greed, imperialism, undealt trauma, and supremacist ideology to name a few, offering a narrative that transcends simplistic “either-or” thinking.
Artistic work can be excellent vehicles for decolonial aesthetics and thought as well as complex representation – but in more palatable, accessible means. Decolonial art can encourage viewers to critically rethink preconceived and propaganda-propelled thinking of geopolitical and ideological constructions that are working just as they were intended – to divide communities rather than unite them. Emphasising solidarity instead through multiple struggles of liberation and simultaneously humanising humans while critiquing the systems and ideologies that foster conflict. Artistic intervention in a care-forward approach can create much-needed space for the ever-popular, much-needed intersectionality. That I am not free until everyone is free.
Many of these examples also emphasise the need to interrogate media and power structures, attempting to hold accountable those that reinforce these false dichotomies. Additionally, beyond making the work itself, many artists inadvertently or intentionally create spaces for dialogue and reflection. Whether it be through public art, workshops, exhibitions, and performances, artists can create spaces for dialogue where people are given the opportunity to grapple with their own biases and assumptions. These are often accompanied by symbolic juxtapositions of symbols, imagery, or histories, creating new visual languages that fuse the struggles rather than separate them, recognising that struggles for freedom are inherently interconnected.
This brings us back to the question of how we reconcile our past is critical to the prosperity of our present and envisioning our tomorrow. Art provides one of many meaningful approaches to making sense of our past for the needs of our present – this is heritage making. Furthermore, dissonant heritage, as coined by Laurajane Smith, a Heritage and Museum Studies scholar, suggests that all heritage is dissonant heritage, subject to difficulty and understood differently across contexts.
Smith offers a valuable framework for understanding heritage, viewing it as a set of discursive symbols that communicate symbolic practices intended to reflect collective identities. In her exploration of the Uses and Abuses of Heritage, she examines how historical events are integrated into public political discourse to represent contemporary values through the lens of the past. From a post-modern, post-colonial, and post-Soviet perspective, she argues that heritage is inherently dissonant, as it is shaped by the systems and people seeking to reinforce their power. Marginalised groups often create contrasting narratives that challenge the prevailing discourse. As a result, heritage becomes a site of contestation between different groups.
What Now?
If the last few years have revealed anything, it’s that we haven’t dealt with the past. So much of the justification of today’s atrocities takes us into the dark and murky depths of undealt with trauma and historical wounds – and just as essential, little to no forms of accountability or justice. Just as pain demands to be felt, art demands to be created, especially in times of acute grief, horror, and suffering. We’re reminded of our longing for meaning, purpose, and connection through engaging with art, whether it’s in the making, participation, or absorption of it. In chasms of difference, creative expression allows us to find out more about ourselves and invites others along for the ride of self-discovery, offering a shared space for reflection and healing. As physician, author, and trauma expert Gabor Maté reminds us, unprocessed trauma not only festers but shapes the future, perpetuating cycles of pain while still necessitating taking personal responsibility. Art, in this way, serves as a tool to disrupt that cycle, propelling us toward reconciliation and reckoning.
Art has the remarkable ability to help us return to our bodies, stimulating both mind and body and inviting us into a more bodied existence. The act of creating art in itself can be a form of paying attention, dissent, and care-forward audacious assertion to exist, particularly when it is created without or in resistance to a capitalist or consumerist mindset. In a society that places tremendous value on productivity, creating something with no immediate monetary value or societal accolade is itself a radical act of care. Art exists for the sake of existing, and this defiance against commodification makes it all the more powerful and needed. Unsurprisingly, art is then often one of the first things to be censored in authoritarian regimes and oppressive systems as it is viewed as a threat and challenge.
The act of creating art in itself can be a form of paying attention, dissent, and care-forward audacious assertion to exist, particularly when it is created without or in resistance to a capitalist or consumerist mindset.
In times of overwhelming crisis, art can also offer moments of respite – reminding us that rest is essential, even when pausing feels like a denial of reality. How do we reconcile the necessity of rest with the urgency of action? Can rest itself be a form of resistance? Artistic intervention is then about more than disruption – it’s about cultivating spaces of stillness, quietness, reflection, and care that can foster long-term, sustainable resistance. Without taking moments of respite, we risk not having the capacity to show up for ourselves, those in our corners of the world and when critical opportunities of solidarity and resistance emerge.
At the same time, we must confront the uncomfortable truth that much of the (art) world remains silent on critical issues. The deafening silence of many within the art community is a troubling indicator that there is still much work to be done. While there is significant discussion around decolonisation and equity, meaningful action and accountability are still lacking. The hypocrisy in how global power dynamics play out, particularly regarding the treatment of migrants and refugees at the Polish-Belarus border or the selective accountability applied to Israel’s campaign against Palestine compared to the support Ukraine has garnered from the West, all serve as stark reminders of the inconsistencies in how solidarity is practised. We cannot afford to prioritise some narratives, histories, and bodies over others if we are to genuinely advocate for justice.
In our post-truth era, where conflicting narratives abound, art becomes a tool for making sense of our own experiences and those of others. Amid the digital age’s constant consumption and distraction, art has the power to reclaim our attention, spark curiosity and questions, and challenge us to engage thoughtfully rather than passively consume. It serves as both a mirror and a map, reflecting the complexities of the human experience and providing pathways for connection and joy.
Ultimately, the role of art in resistance is not merely to challenge power but to build bridges through care-forward interventions. As James Baldwin famously noted, despair is a luxury we cannot afford and that “love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is, by the love and passion of a very few people”. We must find ways to come together, even in disagreement, as long as those disagreements do not cross into dehumanisation and seek out the removal of rights, protections, and dignities of other human beings.
Art, with its ability to bring us into conversation with ourselves and each other, offers a powerful medium for fostering empathy and understanding. By embracing intersectionality and bearing witness to the suffering and struggles of others, we can work to dismantle the systems that divide all of us and move toward a future where solidarity, care, and resistance are not just ideals but lived realities. Through creative dialogue and collective action, we can begin to forge a more compassionate and inclusive world.
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