Sarah Halford (GGFUP, 2016, Location: Berlin)
The relationship between art and activism has many different descriptors. Some call it “social practice” or “protest art” or “artivism.” In my research, however, I have mainly been using the moniker “artistic activism,” with a specific rationale in mind. Working as a research fellow at the Center for Artistic Activism, which believes that there can be a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship between art and activism when one is applied to the other, I have been interviewing artists who specifically functionalize art as a tool to address social issues and create change. In other words, if the activism is aestheticized and the art is activized, then the art can enliven the activism (and potentially allow its audience to receive the activist message on an emotional level) and the activism can give the art organization and a specific strategy.