12 Gestures
This seminar is the result of a collaboration between the Public school, which opened at Bétonsalon in September 2009 and a project initiated by Kadist Art Foundation’s philanthropic and artistic branches bringing together an artist and an NGO. Conceived as a series of interventions programmed over one year, this seminar focuses on artistic practices that question the social sphere through the acquaintance of a community in a specific geographical, political and social context. The course will present experiences which keep questioning the role of the artist, curator or art centre outside of exhibition making, when the distance between artist and citizen tends to erase. We would rather use the term ‘gesture’ than ‘action’ since these projects are often modest and very local; their goal might not to change things but simply to raise a certain awareness. Examining realized projects in details, the seminar will question the definition of so-called ‘social practices’ in the field of art and will underline words such as ‘activism’, ‘engagement’, ‘collective’, ‘community’, ‘democracy’, ‘dissensus’… as well as the possible risks: instrumentalization and demagogical participation.