AHT 327 Activist Art
This course investigates activist art within the context of global issues. It analyzes seminal events, such as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement and its international repercussions, or the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong, to understand how art activism effectively raises awareness and provokes change, and where it falls short of or fails to accomplish its goals. Understanding the aesthetics of protest and push in specific movements and in what way forms of visual protest have impacted the creation, perception, and value of art are a further topics: would Banksy have risen to such fame without the context of global protests in which he posits his graffiti? Did the necessary anonymity and encryption of digital protest push digital art, including NFTs and AI generated works? What moves human minds to take action? How will activist art in the future transform the accepted canons of art? The course addresses all aspects and approaches of the Art Histories, Ecologies, and Industries major.