In a world that is becoming more and more polarised. In an era where we are confronting critical interconnected challenges: system collapse, large-scale human migration due to geopolitical and border conflicts, resource scarcity (food, water, use of land, etc), increased frequency of disease outbreaks and global security issues, it’s more important than ever to show that a different world is possible. Can the art world provoke and drive social transformation, a shift in values, making us rethink our relationship to material culture? Can it reveal new definitions of what progress means? In which ways can artists dismantle and subvert existing orders, and help us imagine alternative ways of coexistence that are more in tune with the current state of the world?
Curator and cultural producer Carmen Salas talked about her practice, the Art+Culture Manifesto she created in 2020, and the importance of artistic practice to drive social transformation. Through a detailed exploration of a specific case study, she will discuss the potential of art and culture – and its relationship with other disciplines like science and technology – to not only question and deconstruct the values imposed by our current economic system, but to propose other ways of being in the world that are kinder and fairer with our surrounding environment and with its inhabitants.
Art critic, curator, and blogger Régine Debatty used the figure of the heretic to illustrate the work of artists, hackers and designers who refuse to adhere to the Silicon Valley dogma. They believe that there is not just one way to design, engineer and produce technology. They invite us to rethink ideas of progress and innovation from scratch, to produce techniques and technologies that are not only more considerate, inclusive and horizontal but also resolutely disobedient and critical of extractivist forces.
