Echoing the conference theme, we argue that the last few years in particular have called normalities and certainties into question. These changes of different scales have also expanded the boundaries of what is imaginable and thinkable - many grassroots movements whether in response to health discrimination, political upheavals or economic austerity have emerged in the challenging times of the pandemic, which has enormously exacerbated existing inequalities. Creative practices shape protests and responses to political violence and thus carry particular imaginations to challenge the existing power hierarchies.
In this panel, we highlight the imagination of the otherwise in conjunction with aesthetic practices. We consider aesthetic forms of resistance not only as modes of expression, but also as spaces for imagination and experimentation that call for and partially implement new ways of being and acting. We ask how aesthetic practices create new possibilities and form symbolic and embodied ways of according recognition and dignity to those whose claims for social justice have been suppressed. We open up the idea that art‘s relationship to knowledge production is rooted in how it activates responses, critiques and affirmations. Creative practice and arts engage social change through imagination, play, innovation and skills. We explore the entanglements and synergies of political and aesthetic practices in violent conflict and resistance settings, and are also intrigued by the frictions and contradictions that arise from these links. In this way, we are interested in the space art and activism create that enable new ways of feeling, being and experiencing protest, political change and enacting new possibilities.
