Monstrous Events: Aesthetic Dimensions of Collective Protest

The project examines art, literature and film dealing with collective protests in 2011 and after. It will explore how aesthetic presentations advance our understanding of collective political action in ways that other modes of knowledge such as sociology, history and journalism are unable to do. Three interrelated research questions stand at the center: (1) How do aesthetic accounts of collective protests articulate and present ideas and experiences of emancipation, solidarity and temporality? (2) What do such aesthetically rendered experiences tell us about political action and democratic participation? (3) How do we explain that aesthetics can convey knowledge of collective protest, political action and democratic participation that evades the epistemological categories of historiography, social science and journalism? The material is a selection of literary and artistic works that present or perform the Tahrir revolution in Cairo 2011, the People’s Assemblies in Athens 2011, and the Maidan Revolt in Kiev 2013–2014. The project focuses on the dialogical and multivocal modes of experience at the heart collective protest, and examines whether aesthetic works owns similar dialogical qualities. Distinguishing between epistemologies of Representation and Participation, the project explores whether aesthetics can capture experiences of emancipation, solidarity and time that correspond to collective paticipation and democratic agency. Can art help us understand democracy?