Situating Social Practice
View from China: Religion and Ethnicity between Communism and Capitalism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David Leiwei Li
This is an interdisciplinary experiment: it combines a genre of art with an analytic mode of the humanities, interweaving the visual with the verbal, ethnographic examination with philosophical critique. With this cross-border approach, I intend to situate general art practice in particular social settings. More specifically, I select from an archive of 15 years of images made by myself on the subject of religion and ethnicity in post-socialist China. With the visual records, I then illustrate the radical changes in Chinese state ideology and the personal beliefs, or the lack thereof, of Chinese citizens. I elaborate on the potential meanings of the documented images and argue about their significance for China in the world, and the world in China today.
Social Art Practice on the Streets of London: Colours' Influence on Societal Value Systems
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michelle Corvette
Colour has an enemy and it is irrelevance as illustrated by Briony Fer's understanding of colours and their seemingly lack on importance in society, however in the social art practice of adding color in the forms of murals, happenings, and artistic recoloring of entire cities, colour is becoming an impetus for change and power relationships. David Batchelor posits that colour is dangerous because it is considered secondary. Yet it is colors' secondary status that makes it dangerously complex in neoliberal societies. This paper presentation seeks to open up and reconsider the relationship of colour within public space to provide a critical analysis of how lived space, thirdspace, and values interact with social art practices. Returning to Lefebvre's 'spatial triad' for a moment to understand the spatial problematic concerns for quotidian details of existence, alienations, and the urban condition that social art practices embody in the production of space, it is argued that lived space becomes an area of domination and experience where social art practice is "in action" and not passive. The utilization of of colour in public space touches upon this thirdspace interaction as moments of resistance. Three cases studies are discussed that are focused on resistances that challenge traditional assumptions of colour in public space. Resistance is located in "the social movement" (Bourdieu, 1999) where increasingly disempowered groups join forces with intellectuals to create change. Careful analysis of colour in public space may help to reveal power relations that have been rendered invisible by habitus.
