You Say You Want a Revolution? Building a kaleidoscopic chorus against, without and beyond violence

Inaugural Lecture by Novo Nordisk Foundation Visiting Professor in Art & Art History, Marsha Meskimmon.

Is it possible to make a revolution without violence?

This inaugural lecture, given by scholar Marsha Meskimmon as part of the project Peace and Planet: Thinking nonviolence with transcultural art practices, decolonial feminisms and the environmental humanities argues in the affirmative, and suggests a provocative but compelling counter-question: what are the possibilities offered by making a revolution against, without and beyond violence?

Making a revolution without violence requires imagination, experimentation and determination. Nonviolent revolution is a present, ongoing and constitutive practice of transformation that challenges the deeply interconnected modes of violence – direct, structural, cultural and epistemic – that uphold the status quo. A collective and radically inclusive praxis, revolutionary nonviolence conceives the human as profoundly interdependent and embedded within the world, not given sovereign authority over it, and seeks to build diverse coalitions and solidarities. This kind of revolution starts here and now, is facilitated by prefigurative worldbuilding and ecological thinking, and engenders transformation all the way down.

What role can art play in such a project? It is the contention of this lecture that the material and imaginative work of art has the potential to render it integral to making a revolution against, without, and beyond violence. Exploring works by the artists Yael Bartana (Israel/Germany), Yoko Ono (Japan/USA) and Judy Watson (Waanyi; Australia), the presentation will propose a kaleidoscopic chorus for disarmament, demilitarization and planetary survival as a way of thinking with aesthetics and diffractive materiality for revolutionary nonviolence.

The lecture will be followed by a reception.