Introduction
The toolkit is intended primarily for artists, cultural workers, and artistic collectives living or working in exile, migration, and diaspora, and assumes no particular academic background or artistic discipline. It is equally applicable to facilitators developing artivism workshops, to cultural and human rights organisations, residency programmes, and funders working with displaced artists, and to researchers examining art, migration, resistance, and social change.
This toolkit gives artists in exile the analytical tools to decide for themselves what the political dimension of their work will be. – Source
Below are selected excerpts from the toolkit with the full version accessible at the link provided.
Contents of Toolkit
- On Need, Rupture, and Beyond/ Post Narratives
- On this Toolkit: Artivism in Exile and Immigration
- Theoretical frameworks: Understanding Artivism
- Critical Analysis: Art, Migration, and Cultural Politics
- Practical Tools: Artivism’s ‘Methodologies and Tools’ Workshop
- Section I: Preface to Activism, Artistic and Cultural Activism
- Section II: Examining the need and deconstructing its surrounding narratives
- Section III: Who’s with us, who’s on us, and what’s with us
- Section IV: Creative Intervention Design – From Resources to Community Action
- Section V: Constructing an Artistic and Creative Intervention Plan with Community Involvement
- Section VI: Evaluating the Experience, Harvesting what Learnt, and Planning the Next Intervention
- Recommendations and warnings for artists and activists in designing artistic interventions with a political and social dimension in the context of exile
- Case Studies, Analytics, Models/Samples
- Mansion Beirut: The Urban Commons as a Tool for Cultural Resistance
- The Assemblage of Art and Culture Workers in Lebanon: Gathering of women and men working in culture and arts
- Syrian Theatre Collectives in Germany: Alternative Models and New Roles for Theatre in Activism
- Visualising Palestine: Canada/ Palestine
- Creative Memory of the Syrian Revolution: Syria/ Diaspora
- Khalid Albaih and Satirical Caricature: Sudan/Diaspora
- Literally Peace: Syria/ Germany
- FilmLab Palestine
- Fanni Raghman Anni (FRA): Tunisia
- ADEF Foundation: Egypt/ Arab World
- Citizen Dancers South: Tunisia
- Taksir: Civic initiative designed to facilitate the adoption of Blockchain technologies in the Arab region
- Ahmad Zeno and artivism during the Syrian time of revolution: Performing arts, political satire, non-violent activism, cultural resistance.
- Reservoir Section Protection and Support Systems
- References
What is Artivism?
Artivism is the utilization of arts as a means of conveying social, political, or cultural messages, and influencing public consciousness, sparking dialogue, and stimulating change. It is located at the intersection between creativity and social and political action, where artistic tools and creative media become a means to critique and reimagine reality.
Providing some Definitions of Key Concepts of Social Change through Arts:
- Social change through arts: The utilization of different art forms (theatre, music, visual arts, literature, photography, design, dance) to raise societal issues and stimulate intellectual, political and economic shifts.
- Creative Intervention: The use of an artistic medium to create social interaction and change the audience’s behaviour or awareness towards a particular issue.
- Society/Community Art: An artistic practice that originates from the community and for the community, where the audience is a partner in the creative process and not just a recipient.
- Activism: Civic action undertaken by citizens individually or organised with others in unorganised movements or initiatives or in
organised or poorly organised groups, with the aim of influencing public affairs (mobilisation) to achieve specific demands in order to promote democracy, freedom and human rights. - Culture: Culture is all the spiritual, physical, intellectual and emotional features that characterise a particular society and includes arts and literature, ways of life, fundamental human rights, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
Understanding Artivism
In 2015, theorist and curator Peter Weibel wrote that ‘artivism is perhaps the first new art form of the 21st century’. This statement reflects the significant momentum gained by this artistic practice, which combines artistic creation and activist work, in recent
years as it has become a global phenomenon. Artistic activism opens up new and attractive possibilities in both art and traditional activism.
In art, it recognises the political dimension of art and uses it as a tool for change. In conventional activism, it enriches, expands and diversifies strategies and interventions aimed at social and political change.
The term ‘artistic activism’ is a neologism resulting from the combination of the words: ‘art’ and ‘activism’, which accurately reflects its hybrid nature. According to E. Aladro-Fico et al., it is defined as “Artivism is a hybrid form of art and activism which
has a semantic mechanism to use art as a means towards change and social transformation”. While related to similar terms such as ‘creative activism’, ‘activist art’ and ‘political art’, it differs in that it gives equal importance to artistic creation and
socio-political action, highlighting the ‘organic relationship between art and activism’.
As the artist and activist John Jordan explains, artistic activism is ‘a position and practice that exists on the fertile edges between art and activism’. It emerges when creativity merges with resistance, when our political actions become as beautiful as a poem and as effective as a well-designed tool.’ “an attitude, a practice which exists on the fertile edges between art and activism. It comes into being when creativity and resistance collapse into each other. It’s what happens when our political actions become as beautiful as poems and as effective as a perfectly designed tool.
Though the term ‘art activism’ has only recently emerged in the vocabulary of artists, activists and theorists, its roots can be traced back to the early 20th century. During this period, avant-garde movements such as Dadaism, the Russian avantgarde and Surrealism emerged, challenging the artistic and political establishments of the time.
Initial forms of art activism emerged during the 1960s and 1970s in the form of art movements such as conceptual art, Situationism and performance art (interconnected art movements that share a focus on the idea, experience, and social context of art, rather than traditional art objects). These movements challenged the rules of institutional art and sought to integrate art with politics and everyday life. Artivism also manifested itself in radical theatre forms such as the Bread and Puppet Theatre and the Theatre of the Oppressed.
The term ‘artivism’ was first coined in 1997 in reference to the Chicano artists’ collective and the Zapatista movement in Mexico. The Chicano art movement focused on the work of Mexican-American artists who, inspired by the Chicano movement of the
1960s, sought to establish a strong artistic identity. Their work took political and aesthetic forms, addressing cultural and social issues with the aim of resisting prevailing norms and challenging harmful patterns and stereotypes.
Why ‘Artivism in Exile’?
In exile contexts, art assumes additional roles beyond personal or aesthetic expression, becoming a means of maintaining/preserving identity, confronting alienation, and creating spaces of resistance. The potential roles of cultural and artistic work in exile can be summarised in the following categories:
- Preserving and enhancing narratives: Using art to document history and collective memory, which would otherwise be excluded or forgotten.
- Criticising and transforming: Transforming personal and communal experiences into critical reflections to help understand exile and belonging.
- Engagement: Shining a light on burning political and social issues and creating artistic shocks that catalyse change.
- Advocacy and lobbying: Using the arts to communicate the issues faced by exiled communities to a wider audience and mobilise support for them.
Exercise – Generator Tool
The Generator Tool is an exploratory design technique that aims to support artists and creatives in creating socially or politically driven art projects and initiatives. The tool has been developed to assist in the process of eschewing conventional thinking
and embracing multiple possibilities prior to the formulation of a specific plan for the initiative.
Why using this tool :
- Let’s consider challenges from different perspectives.
- Let’s explore artistic mediums and styles beyond what we already know.
- Let’s give ourselves space to think outside our daily routine.
- Let’s get closer to the real motivation behind what we want to change.
- Because if a project doesn’t excite you, it won’t inspire others to get involved..
Objective of this exercise:
- Visualising the intervention in a sensory and visual terms.
- Translate abstract ideas into tangible images.
- Fostering collective ownership of the project through collaborating creatively.
- Developing a first concrete action step that can be used as a project document.
Participatory steps for generator use – Preparation for the Session:
- Get your team together with representatives from the local community.
- Decide on a location that is open space and suitable for thinking, equipped with visual aids such as large sheets of paper, stickers and coloured pens.
- Agree on the purpose of the session: Generate creative intervention ideas to fill a gap or respond to a real need identified in the second section.
- Cumulative Brainstorming: The idea is not rejected
- Kick things off with a quick round of ideas. Everyone mentions an idea without commenting on or analysing it.
- Write each idea on a separate piece of paper.
- After the first round, repeat the process, but this time you can build on the ideas.
- Collect similar ideas, categorise them by type of intervention, artistic medium and level of enthusiasm.
2. Identify the political or social driver of the intervention
- Ask yourself: What injustice, imbalance or absence that drives us?
- What do we want to change, and why is now the right time?
- Who is affected by this issue, and who needs to hear about it?
- This engine will guide the art project towards action rather than just expression.
3. A Critical Reflection on the Artistic Medium
- Discuss openly: Is our artistic medium (e.g. painting, theatre or dance) the most effective way to address this issue?
- Do we need to partner with other specialists, such as educators, journalists and lawyers?
- Is the solution through collective action rather than a single artistic product?
This reflection helps us break free from the limitations of our tools and expand our range of options through collaboration.
3.1 Reviewing Past Experiences
- Are there similar creative interventions that have been implemented in the past?
- What do we know about them? What was their nature? Who implemented them?
- What was their impact? Did they reach the intended audience?
- Were they successful or unsuccessful, and why?
This phase does not seek to imitate previous experiences, but rather to avoid repeated mistakes and build on what has already been achieved.
Group discussion
Share examples of well-known or local art interventions.
Identify what can be learnt from them.
What would you change about them if you were on their team?
The goal of this step:
- Building contextual awareness rather than starting from scratch.
- Deepening the understanding of the relationship between ideas and context.
- Foster a sense of continuity and the accumulation of knowledge in artistic activism.
- Hold open discussions: Is our artistic medium (e.g. painting, theatre or dance) the most effective way to address this issue?
- Do we need to partner with other specialists, such as educators, journalists and lawyers?
- Is the solution collective action rather than a single artistic product?
This reflection helps us to break free from the bias of our mediums and expand the spectrum of our tools through collaboration.
4. Formulating the intervention idea
- Once you have collected ideas and discussed the possibilities, pick one or more that you think have real potential and are feasible and doable.
- Formulate an initial conceptualisation of the intervention:
- What is the art form of the initiative?
- Who is involved and who is the audience?
- How does the need we want to address manifest itself in this work?
5. Define intervention objectives
- Formulate 3 to 5 specific and measurable goals, such as:
- Increasing knowledge of a specific issue in the host community.
- Engaging a specific number of local partners.
- Learning with a specific group and supporting with technical media.
6. Create a slogan and message for the intervention
- Think of a short, concise phrase that captures the essence of the project.
- The logo should reflect the goal and the driver, and be easy to visualise and remember visually or linguistically.
7. Design a group handmade poster for the project (participatory collage)
- Once you have defined the idea, media, goals and logo, hold a group art session to design a handmade poster (collage) for the project.
- Use magazine clippings, images, keywords and visual symbols to express the spirit of the art intervention.
- All team members should participate, and you could even invite representatives from the local community to take part in the design process.
- The poster can later be used as a promotional tool or as part of the art exhibition.
Case Study – Syrian Theatre Collectives in Germany
Syrian theatre clusters in Germany, most notably Collective Ma’louba, emerged in the wake of the Syrian refugee waves after 2014 as a creative and cultural response to diaspora and exile. Supported by cultural institutions such as Theater an der Ruhr and the Goethe Institute, as well as independent foundations such as Barzakh, Syrian artists, graduates of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and others have been able to reshape their professional and artistic presence within the German theatre scene. Through such projects as Exile at the Maxim Gorky Theatre, Open Border in Munich, and Yalla Ensemble in Hanover, Syrians have become part of a structural shift in contemporary German theatre.
Activism Analysis:
- Theatre as a Tool for Collective Self-Building Abroad:
Theatre experiences by Syrians in Germany go beyond the ‘victim’ discourse associated with asylum, establishing theatre that focuses on reclaiming agency and generating new forms of belonging and cultural citizenship. Theatre is used as a platform for
reconfiguring identity and collective memory, and as a space for critical dialogue between artists and audiences about concepts such as: Otherness, belonging, integration and language. - Artivism Based on Horizontal Production and Transnational Collaboration:
Projects such as Maqluba and Exile Ensemble are redefining theatre production through nonhierarchical, participatory models that challenge the classic model of national or commercial theatre. The productions are often multilingual, transnational, and
based on direct personal and political experiences, but are crafted in new aesthetic forms that blend theatre and digital media - Hybrid Theatre: Experimentation in Performance, Technique and Time:
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, experiments have emerged to showcase live theatre through live streaming (online) or digitally recording the plays then presenting it. These shifts have forced a reconsideration of the conditions of theatre
performances, the limits of the stage, and the impact of the absence of the audience. A “hybrid” form of theatre that combines theatre and video has also emerged, enabling new experiments in performance, translation, and interaction. - Exile as a Space of Production rather than an Identity Crisis:
These gatherings employ the exile experience not only as narrative subject matter but also as a space for reinventing theatre, where the refugee/exiled becomes not a temporary guest but a founding member of German theatre culture. These
experiments produce a kind of post-nationalist theatre that not only presents the Other, but seeks to redefine the European self through multiplicity and diversity. - Access and Critical Inclusion Policies:
While Syrian experiences are celebrated, challenges remain: The classification as “exile” or “refugee” reproduces a symbolic hierarchy. However, some artists such as Ayham Agha, Kinda Hamidan, Mazen al-Jabba, and others have managed to access
important institutional production spaces by resettling themselves within the European theatre system, raising questions about strategies of continuity outside the refugee agency guardianship. Syrian theatre collectives in Germany, particularly Maqluba and the Exile Ensemble, represent a complex model of artivism in exile. This model combines cultural resistance, artistic reimagining, and participation in the construction of new narratives of identity and belonging. Theatre here is not just a performance space, but a political and cognitive practice that is rooted in experience and aspires to change reality within the spaces of exile and within the European institution itself.
Access Resource
Guide to Artivism in Exile (PDF)
Other Languages
الناشطـية الفنـيـــــة يف املنفىـ (Arabic)
