A collective publication resulting from a research project led by
Sophie Orlando and Katrin Ströbel that takes as its starting point the way in which current geopolitical, economic and social changes induce a renewal and adjustment of artistic strategies, by investing, in an intersectional perspective, contextual thinking and feminist, queer and postcolonial thinking in an artistic and conceptual way.
The practical and theoretical Situations post workshop is a community of artists nourished bya political, social, economic and emotion alanalysis of art. We link collaborative and participatory art to practices of translation and annotation. The word "situation" is borrowed from a sociological legacy (Chicago school,
cultural studies, critical
pedagogy) as well as from an artistic legacy (history of the
situationist avant-garde) and from the study of
feminist and decolonial approaches (Hooks, Haraway, Ahmed). This book does not strive to validate art as a direct political action, nor as an aesthetic category built on a "theoretical" relation to others, but rather as an artistic practice implying collective gestures. To quote
Isabelle Stengers, "it is essential to think on how to enable situations to give rise to collective thinking" (
Resisting Disaster, 2019).
The book renders public and tangible the critical contribution of the Situations post workshop in the context of a workspace created at the Villa Arson (2014–2023), as well as the setting in motion of a body of collective, crossdisciplinary and ephemeral practices.These practices share collaborative and educational aspects, and aspects that belong to a continuum of
institutional critique. Invitations extended to a generation of artists such as Flo*Souad Benaddi, Karima El Karmoudi,
Filles de Blédards, Nelle Gevers, HaYoung, Sarah Netter, H·Alix Sanyas,
Ghita Skali, Silina Syan, gave rise to a prolific exchange between the textual and visual forms of authors Sara Ahmed, Annie Ernaux, Stuart Hall, Marielle Macé,
Bonaventure Ndikung, Qalqalah Collective, Sayak Valencia, as well as artists M'barek Bouhchichi,
Jagna Ciuchta, Nikolaus Gansterer, Stella Geppert, Laïla Hida, Maya Mihindou, Samir Ramdani, and Massinisa Selmani.
