The aesthetic and the artistic constitute spaces of multiplicity in which a fundamental dimension of the political is configured. From this perspective, the social, understood as the space of being together among diverse others, is composed both of normative and institutional elements and of elements of cultural, symbolic and communicative life that generate forms of organization, belonging and collective action. Thus, the political is understood as a form of action shaped by diverse values, norms and sensible schemes that tension and reconfigure the ways of defining and living the common space; the political is not reduced to a way of managing power or to its institutionalization. This symposium aims to open a dialogue on the interweavings between the aesthetic terrain and the political horizon in their various manifestations across the American continent, in order to map the cultural—both political and aesthetic—diversities that make the current horizon of social practices intelligible.
Accordingly, three general lines are proposed: the first, titled artistic policies, focuses on cultural phenomena that seek political positioning through aesthetic means. These include cultural management; community art; memory strategies in theater, visual arts or music; graffiti and the aesthetic reappropriation of spaces; and artistic practices with an identity-based and localized focus.
A second thematic core, titled Aesthetic agency, focuses on the analysis of cultural behaviors that propose other forms of political agency and participation, both formal and informal: where cultural and artistic work becomes community action in strategies for reinforcing local, neighborhood, rural, ethnic and gender identities; strategies around aesthetic practices that mobilize action, such as social fan culture (barrismo), political mobilization from alternative cultures and countercultures, as well as artistic and activist cultural work, are also addressed.
The third core, titled Politics and aesthetics, addresses phenomena grouped around the critical reading of political phenomena through aesthetic means: the articulation between public policies and cultural policies; symbolism and aesthetic-political strategies of traditional parties or alternative groups; political and electoral communication through aesthetic means; emotional phenomena in contemporary politics; and visual schemes in which local and regional identities are deployed (nationalist film or art).
The aim is thus to open a space in which the different aesthetic-political manifestations in the American world allow for a comprehensive reflection on the influences and counter-influences woven among different regions, thereby opening the field of political reflection to the cultural and everyday sphere.
