Theatre as Assembly. Spheres of radical imagination and pragmatic utopias

Art as Assembly. Spheres of radical imagination and pragmatic utopias

An assembly in the context of activism is a place of gathering, of building a community, and of experimenting with different procedures of democracy. But recent years have also seen several artistic attempts to use the form of assemblies to invent new public spheres. Using the unique possibilities of art to create temporary communities, these works not only mirror society but also try out social and political procedures, with which societies can be thought, played, performed, enacted, tested or even invented. The ways art is used for assemblies that give room for radical imagination as well as pragmatic utopias are manifold and seldom contradictory in their aesthetical as well as their political positions. But what unites them is the aim to expand the field of theatre, to push its very means and possibilities, to find ways of engaging with the social and political issues of our time and by this also giving inspiration to activism and political thinking beyond the artistic realm.

The lecture will be followed by a conversation, which will be moderated by Kristina Božič.