“Be it graffiti on the apartheid wall in Palestine or the peace walls in Northern Ireland, people make visual art to tell stories everywhere, especially in times of entrenched violence and systemic oppression.”
Category Archives: Arts
Dessane Lopez Cassell: ‘Vivid Posters Chart a “People’s History” of the Struggle for Social Justice’
“‘Black Patriots’ Were Heroes Of The Revolution — But Not The History Books”
“A new documentary, Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution, introduces us to heroes of the American Revolution who aren’t typically found in history books. They are a writer, a double agent, a martyr and a soldier — and they are all black.”
Posted in Blog, film, freedom, revolution, rights
Tagged American Revolution, race
Joseph Fronczak: “Melancholy and Mobilisation”
A review of Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory by Enzo Traverso
Posted in Blog, defeat, film, melancholy, power, revolution, the Left, tragic politics
Tagged Judaism
“Remembering Activism: The Cultural Memory of Protest in Europe”
“We focus on how the memory of civil resistance has been produced in documentaries, memoirs, commemorations, archiving projects as well as in the visual and literary arts.” Project leader Prof. Ann Rigney, Utrecht University
Posted in Arts, Blog, disobedience, resistance
Tagged memory
Billy Anania: “The Viral Artwork Emerging From Hong Kong’s Protests”
“In Hong Kong, the ongoing protest movement immortalizes its political action in real time through art. … Art and politics are uniquely linked in the city, reinforcing the youth-driven struggle against human rights abuses.”
Julius Gavroche: “Song is a weapon: For José Mário Branco (1942-2019)”
“If his music reflects a particular history which may seem dated to some, his art is a rare example of ethical-political engagement for a world without oppression. Below, we share songs (most with lyrics translated), interviews and a lecture.”
Posted in autonomy, ethics, music, Nota Bene, resistance
Tagged José Mário Branco
Lorissa Rinehart: “A Graphic Novel Looks at the Limits of Freedom in Revolutionary Cuba”
“In Goodbye, My Havana, the Cuban revolution’s prescribed limits of freedom are most evident in the relegation of women and LGBTQ individuals to the periphery, where their rights quickly erode and their personhood is more easily dismissed. The benefit of hindsight shows Castro’s regime working inward from there. Once it had stripped the most vulnerable of their rights, it was easier to impose a system of authoritarianism on the remainder of the populace.”
Posted in fiction, gender, justice, Nota Bene, revolution, rights, tragic politics
Tagged Cuba
A.O. Scott: “Review: ‘Edge of Democracy’ Looks at Brazil with Outrage and Heartbreak”
‘One of the implications of “The Edge of Democracy” is that as Lula and the Workers’ Party lost touch with the mass movement that brought them to power and mastered the levers of the political system, they made themselves vulnerable to popular anger on the right. Corruption and back room dealing were longstanding norms of Brazilian governance that the party didn’t do much to challenge.’
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Posted in film, hubris, melancholy, Nota Bene, revolt, the Left, tragic politics
Tagged Brazil
“4 Musicians Chart 100 Years in the Life of a Runaway Slave”
‘Hans Werner Henze’s “El Cimarrón” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘
