ART FOR RADICAL ECOLOGIES MANIFESTO

1/ Art is part of the world. Art for Radical Ecologies is part of the struggles to change it.

2/ Art is a promise of other worlds, but it is in the actual world that promises must be kept participating in the struggles for its transformation.

3/ New materialism and historical materialism together act against exploitation and domination. Speculation opens up to potential becoming counter-hegemonic social practice, otherwise it is neutralization and capture.

4/ In our current environmental breakdown, the necessary condition for autonomy of art is its autonomy from the neoliberal-extractivist apparatus. Art workers and art institutions must reflect about their positionality and act accordingly.

5/ Art for Radical Ecologies is abolitionist, against police repression, fascism, racism, colonialism and genocide. It is grounded in the voices of the oppressed and is our breath of liberation.

6/ The revolutionary subject is not only human. Transversal and interspecies alliances can powerfully act against ventriloquisms, dualisms, and othering hierarchies. 

7/ Art for Radical Ecologies makes visible the human and other-than-human vulnerabilities and precariuosness and takes care of them.

8/ Dismantling the foundations of colonial privilege in this era of environmental and democratic collapse is paramount. Art for Radical Ecologies opens up space against the contention and detention of migrating humans and  other-than-humans. 

9/ Struggles are interconnected, because so are oppressions. Ideological and material extractivism abusing lives as resources, means or products must end now. In shared life, liberation is total. 

10/ End Fossil is the priority. Any complicity with biocapitalism, extractive industry and financial greenwashing in and outside art institutions must end.

11/ Art for Radical Ecologies is either anti-capitalist or it is not. Capitalism is the driver of environmental breakdown. There is no such thing as sustainable capitalism. Technosolutionism and transition reformism are bullshit.

12/ Art for Radical Ecologies stands with technologies that free human and other-than human life and do not perpetuate the exploitation of productive and reproductive labor.

13/ Art for Radical Ecologies is generative yet anti-productivist. It embraces degrowth and multiplies questions, terminologies, connections and scenarios.

14/ Art institutions funded by toxic philanthropy must be abolished. Anti-museums and alter-institutions are the forms that we adopt for common instituent imagination.

15/ As art workers we inhabit spaces of race, class, gender privilege as well as subordination. We  stand with those whose freedoms are menaced. We reclaim freedom of speech and stand against censorship.

16/ Dystopia is privilege. Enough with the apocalyptic talk, it’s not the end of the world, but of global capitalism and its toxic imaginaries. Art repairs temporalities and liberates futurity, opening horizons beyond capitalist realism and catastrophism.

Published on November 3rd, 2023 by Institute of Radical Imagination

Signatures by Individuals and Organisaitons

  1. Institute of Radical Imagination
  2. Emanuele Braga, artist, Milano, Italy
  3. Gabriella Riccio, artist, Napoli, Italy
  4. Marco Baravalle, researcher and curator, Venice, Italy
  5. Maddalena Fragnito, artist and researcher, Milano, Italy
  6. Federica Timeto, professor Ca’ Foscari Uniersity, Venice, Italy
  7. Andreco, Artist, Rome, Italy
  8. Climate Art Project, Cultural Association, Rome, Italy
  9. Ashley Dawson, researcher and activist, New York / USA
  10. Oliver Ressler, artist and filmmaker, Vienna, Austria
  11. Sale Docks, Venice, Italy
  12. Mao Mollona, London, UK
  13. Elena Blesa Cabéz, mediator and researcher, Barcelona, Spain
  14. Sara Buraya Boned, cultural worker, Madrid, Spain
  15. Francesco Martone, Artsforthecommons/int’l Tribunal on the Rights of Nature, Italy/Ecuador
  16. Rosa Jijon, Artist at Artsforthecommons/Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature, Italy/Ecuador
  17. Debra Solomon, infrastructure activist / artist / planner, The Netherlands
  18. The Urbaniahoeve Foundation, social design lab for urban and regenerative agricultures, The Netherlands
  19. Anna Viola Hallberg, artist/curator, Stockholm/Sweden
  20. Nick Aikens, editor, curator, researcher, Brussels, Belgium / Gothenburg, Sweden
  21. André Alves, Artist Educator Writer, Porto/Portugal
  22. Denise Araouzou, Curator, Researcher, Cyprus / Italy
  23. Amalia Caputo, artist, Venezuela/USA
  24. Jules Coumans, Artist, Amsterdam Netherlands
  25. Theo Dietz, artist, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  26. Rita Barreira, Researcher/ Cultural Worker, Lisbon/ Portugal
  27. amalia caputo, artist, Venezuela/USA
  28. Robert Rickli, Artist, Prague , Czech Republic
  29. Sitesize, Artistic and cultural association, Barcelona / Catalonia
  30. Mario Framis Pujol, Farmer researcher, Barcelona, Spain
  31. Leonardo, Student and writer, Milano/ Italy
  32. Martina Riescher, Multidisciplinary Artist, Munich/Germany, L’Aquila/Italy
  33. Koohan Paik-Mander, Retired, Honokaa, USA
  34. Nathalie Trutmann, Artist, Suresnes
  35. Valeria, artist sanguini, Italy
  36. Leila Topic, art historian, Zagreb/ Croatia
  37. Stevan Vukovic, Curator, Belgrade, Serbia
  38. Sonia Rolak, artist, Venice, Italy
  39. Max Provenzano, Artist, Lisbon
  40. Giulia Furlanetto Martina, Student, Venezia
  41. Giulia Gregnanin, Director, Helmsdale
  42. Ignacio Pérez Pérez, Artist, Kankaanpää, Finland
  43. Andrea Di Turi, Milan, Italy
  44. Greta Ttrisciani, cultural manager, Montegranaro-Italy