Overcoming the State of Oblivion: Decolonial Approaches within Engaged Art Practices

This research project focuses on tracking artistic responses to social, ecological, and economic sustainability, as well as social responses to artistic movements that go beyond turning art into a commodity in service of a neoliberal agenda. In this doctoral thesis, I provide a critical analysis of contemporary politically engaged art projects that claim to challenge dominant models of world-building and present alternative forms of living through the use of decolonial methodologies and political ecology approaches. In particular, I examine ‘alter-institutional practice’ in order to comprehend the role art plays in the search for social justice, political horizontality and autonomous forms of organising. This thesis draws a comparative analysis of three case studies—Campus in Camps, Institute for Human Activities and World of Matter—and interrogates if these alter-institutional initiatives can provide a platform where ‘spaces of hope’ can be stimulated and nurtured. Touching upon aspects of decolonial critique, I argue that alter-institutional projects use failure as a prolific tool to create ‘spaces of hope’ which can in turn lead to the development of autonomous forms of living and just world-building practices.