Between Rebel Creativity and Reification: For and Against Visual Activism

Abstract

Examining the advantages and limitations of the term ‘visual activism’, this article considers three case studies: the artist–activist work of the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, a France-based collective dedicated to rebel creativity as part of the alter-globalization struggle for a world of economic equality, environmental sustainability, and social justice; the Grupo de Investigation en Arte y Politica (GIAP), until recently based in Chiapas, Mexico, where members have worked closely with the Zapatistas and their revolutionary politics of aesthetics and autonomous ecologies; and the photographer Subhanker Banerjee, who has dedicated himself to representing, researching, and politically organizing around Arctic environmentalism in recent years. All have used visual elements creatively in their practices to expand their political engagements, just as they have variously mobilized the political elements of their practices to redefine what art means today.