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What is the role of art in liberation movements? What happens to culture in the wake of conflict?
This panel discussion considers how artists have played a role in resisting political oppression around the world, what cultural forms follow historic moments of political change, and how international artistic solidarities continue to shape liberation movements. Join artists, writers and activists as they explore these key issues together.
The programme is inspired by our current exhibition Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective (1970–2023), which features portrayals of a global Black struggle for freedom as well as work drawing on the artist’s personal experience of and resistance to apartheid in South Africa.
14.00 Introduction by Gilane Tawadros (Director, Whitechapel Gallery)
14.10-15.40 Art and Political Freedom: Towards Justice
The politically concerned artist feels impelled to do more than just march with fellow demonstrators. There is a need to distinguish an artistic response from the greater public outcry. – Gavin Jantjes
This panel explores the relationship between art making and political action. Can art create change beyond raising awareness? What is the function of art in political movements?
Featuring artists Gavin Jantjes, Larissa Sansour, Peter Kennard, artist and writer Morgan Quaintance, chaired by filmmaker and writer Juliet Jacques.
Morgan Quaintance is a London-based artist and writer. His moving image work has been shown and exhibited widely at festivals and institutions including: MOMA, New York; Konsthall C, Stockholm; David Dale, Glasgow; International Film Festival Rotterdam; New York Film Festival and Third Horizon Film Festival, Miami. He is the author of the book ‘汾阳的喧嚣: Ironic Resonance, Anti-sound Design and Radical Cacophony in Jia Zhangke’s 小 Xiao 武 Wu’ and regularly contributes to Art Monthly.
Peter Kennard was born in London in 1949 and lives and works in Hackney, East London. He studied at the Slade and the Royal College of Art. His work has been at the cutting edge of political art since his work protesting the Vietnam War in 1968. His photomontages, installations and paintings are known globally, gaining exposure in galleries, on the streets, in newspapers, magazines, posters and books. He is Professor of Political Art, Royal College of Art, London.
In recent years his work has been included in many group exhibitions, including, ‘Media Burn’, Tate Modern; ‘Rude Britannia’, Tate Britain; ‘ Forms of Resistance’, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and solo exhibitions including, ‘At Earth’ at Raven Row, London, to coincide with the publication of his book @earth, Tate Publishing 2011 and a retrospective ‘Peter Kennard: Unofficial War Artist’ at The Imperial War Museum, London 2015.
Larissa Sansour was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Bethlehem in Palestine. She works mainly with film, and also produces installations, photos and sculptures. Central to her work is the dialectics between myth and historical narrative. Her work often uses science fiction to address social and political issues, dealing with memory, inherited traumas, power structures and nation states. In 2020, Sansour was the recipient of the Jarman award. Her work is shown in film festivals and museums worldwide amongst which, the Tate Modern, MoMA, Centre Pompidou and the Istanbul Biennial. In 2019, Sansour represented Denmark at the 58th Venice Biennale. Her most recent solo shows in 2023, included Tomorrow’s Ghosts at Kunsten in Denmark and Familiar Phantoms at The Whitworth Gallery in the UK. She lives and works in London in the UK.
Activist, painter, printmaker, curator and writer Gavin Jantjes (b. 1948, South Africa, lives and works in the UK) was born in Cape Town just as the apartheid regime in South Africa was beginning its ascent. Drawing on personal experience, he explores the role of art in furthering human rights, freedom of expression and cultural understanding. He has exhibited internationally, and his works can be found in the collections of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Tate, London; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has received commissions from the United Nations Refugee Council and the UN Commission on Apartheid. He has lectured at Chelsea College of Arts in London and served as artistic director for the Henie Onstad Art Center, Norway (1998–2004), and senior curator for the National Museum, Oslo (2004–2014). His many books include A Fruitful Incoherence (Iniva, 1998) and the four-volume Visual Century: South African Art in Context 1907–2007 (Wits University Press, 2010). He lives and works in Oxfordshire.
Juliet Jacques (b. Redhill, Surrey in 1981) is a writer, filmmaker, broadcaster and academic based in London. She has published six books, including Trans: A Memoir (2015), two short story collections including Variations (2021), Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021 (2022), and a novella, Monaco (2023). Her fiction, journalism and essays have appeared in the Guardian (including her ‘Transgender Journey’ column, longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011), New York Times, Frieze, London Review of Books and many other publications; her short films have screened in galleries and festivals across the world. She teaches at the Royal College of Art and elsewhere, hosted the arts discussion programme Suite (212) on Resonance 104.4fm, and is a co-host of Novara FM. She has played football for Clapton Community FC, Horley Town and Surrey.
