Counter Infrastructures : Art and Activism

A symposium on building and maintaining alternative infrastructures that support activist art action.

Monday, 4th December - Tuesday, 5th December 2023

Counter-Infrastructures: Art and Activism 
NCAD / Gallery, 100 Thomas St. Dublin 8

In a context of seemingly perpetual economic, social, environmental and political upheaval framed as the “permacrisis”, Counter-Infrastructures: Art and Activism is a symposium that aims to explore methods for supporting long term, meaningful and resilient activist art practices. Convened by Dr Tom O'Dea.

The symposium asks how artistic strategies can help us to develop and support social formations that are durable beyond the timescales of the immediate moment, project timeline or crisis, towards “counter-infrastructures” that underpin new ways of living and being together within and against the dominance of extractive and destructive capitalist intersectionally discriminatory systems. Through a combination of theoretical discussions and practical workshops, Counter-Infrastructures will model the creation of durable and meaningful infrastructures that support both communities and artists in tackling issues of urgent social concern. 

Counter-Infrastructures will bring leading contemporary national and international practitioners and theorists of activist art together to develop an understanding of the necessary structures required to support art and activism before, during and after action. The symposium will look at three examples of infrastructures that frame art practice – the curriculum, the institution and the archive – and examine ways of re-imaging these as counter-infrastructures to support activist art practice.
Featuring contributions from - 
Nuraini Juliastuti
MA in Art & Social Action
Viviana Checchia 
The Radical Institute
The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination
Action Archive
Ed Webb-Ingall
MARCH, a journal of art and strategy

PROGRAMME ::
Monday DECEMBER 4th, 2023
10:00 Nuraini Juliastuti & MA Art & Social Action: Counter-Curriculum Workshop (Closed Session)
18:00 Roundtable discussion with Viviana Checchia, Nuraini Juliastuti and Eve-Olney The Radical Institute) on Counter-Infrastructures. Including discussion session led by students from the Masters In Art and Social Action. (open to all - no booking required)

Tuesday DECEMBER 5th, 2023
10:00 The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination: Counter-Institution Workshop - Booking Required - LINK
14:00 Action Archive: Counter-Archive Workshop - Booking Required - LINK
18:30 Counter-Institution: Output and Closing (open to all - no booking required)
19:00 Ed-Webb Ingall:  Counter-Archive Talk and Screening (open to all - no booking required)

ONLINE
Online with MARCH, a journal of art and strategy
www.march.international

Any queries, please contact Tom O Dea

 

NCAD Gallery
National College of Art and Design, 100 Thomas St., Dublin D08 K521. 

 

Counter-Infrastructures: Art & Activism is supported by funding from the National University of Ireland.