Article | Artistic Intervention as a Direct Action

On 18th February, I gave a guest lecture on the course, Art as a Method for Anthropology at Háskóli Íslands. Students of Anna Wojtyńska are preparing an artistic intervention in the public space. I found it a great occasion to propose looking at artistic intervention as a direct action in understanding solidarity unionism.

Art intervention and solidarity unionism

The term art intervention applies to art designed specifically to interact with an existing structure or situation, be it another artwork, the audience, an institution, or in the public domain. 

Solidarity unionism is a model of labor organizing that is direct, democratic, caring, and industrial:
Direct - workers themselves formulate a strategy and take action without mediation from a government or paid union representatives. 
Democratic - democratic committees of workers in the workplace are determining tactics and a strategy to reach the goal, organizing together builds a culture of care and solidarity among workers, caring for a fellow worker.
Industrial - the goal of solidarity unionism is to organize all workers in one industry, or all industries into one union, regardless of skills or position. Organizing in one union gives workers better leverage in bargaining local and general agreements and strike actions. 

Why do I want to combine those unionizing and arts? I see a huge benefit in putting a structure and reasoning from unionizing in an open, chaotic context of art intervention, especially when it’s a debut or exceptional task for the university students, not connected with long-term artistic practice. In defining the resources and goals of this project, students have a chance to think creatively, answer questions about planned action and its consequences, think about the big idea and organizational details, be aware of the environment of their action, people and objects involved, and broader context. On the other hand, adding playfulness, images, visual and audial representation, creative documentation, and memorable moments to union and community organizing is of great value.

Step by step

It’s a very useful thought exercise to run the idea of artistic intervention in the public space through the components of direct action planning. 

We start from the issue we organize around - defining the problem that is important for the student. What is significant for the student and/or their environment nowadays?

Then, defining the demand - in a unionizing context this would be defining what the workers demand that the boss do to fix the issue. In the context of artistic intervention, however, this step would take the form of defining the change around the chosen issue: what students want to change in the issue to show it, amplify it, examine, experience or explore, change its conditions, or portray it in a particular way.

The next step is defining the goal, a desired outcome of the action - the goal is broader than the demand. It can be focused on disseminating an idea, working on a global issue, or fulfilling a dream. Defining the goal helps in designing a future campaign, the long-term outcome of the artistic intervention, and the consequences for one’s plans, career, or educational path.

Then we should define the target of artistic intervention: who is ‘the boss’ - who are the people you demand to do something? Target can be limited to the organizers of the artistic situation and focused on provoking a change in the artists themselves, the target can also be fellow classmates, people invited to the event, the ones who are physically in the space of the artistic intervention, or people who are not present, for example, local decision-makers.

Then, one should think about the tactic of artistic intervention: How will the artist make the target do what they want? Planning the tactics should include an order of actions sequence that builds up the context. What is the most effective and uses the least resources? Those categories are not encouraged in arts and culture very often, but the reality is that we constantly work on a specific budget that should be spent most effectively. The use of resources shouldn’t be focused only on economic resources: it’s worth considering time and emotional resources (presenting particular topics in a specific place, who has access to your intervention, who is it directed to, for whom, and in what way it can be harmful). Important components of direct action are participants - who will take part in the action, and what will their role be? It’s worth thinking about the hierarchy and distribution of the capitals here - whose role is more prestigious, who will be seen as the author of the project and why. Witnesses are also important to be conscious of - who will experience your artistic intervention and in what way? Some witnesses may see it directly, while others might see it as an archival recording, text, social media post, or critical text.

Thinking about where the audience is placed is another element to consider - are they participants of your intervention or witnesses? What do you want them to do during the action? What do you want them to do after your action? Before the artistic intervention, it’s worth thinking about the possible result of your action. When will you call it a success? Choose the evaluation methods - for yourself, for the participants and/or witnesses (for example, head-heart-hand-feet evaluation where people are asked to reflect on what they learned, what they felt, and what are their next steps after leaving the event). Did the action meet your demand and lead you to achieve the goal?

After the action, it is good to follow up: check in with participants and witnesses to see how your intervention affected them; follow up with your target and their response to your action; reflect on what you might do differently next time.

The last piece in direct action planning is the escalation: if the demand is not met, what steps will you take to increase the influence on the target? Will you change your tactic and participants or choose a different target? What are the additional/side-effects of your action that you did not foresee in the planning process?

Around your project

Another tool that can be included in the planning of artistic intervention is an Ecological portrait of a project that I’ve learned recently through the microTAIGA program run by the new visions coven (newvisions.me). Creating the ecological portrait encourages looking at the project´s components and analyzing its impact on the physical and cultural environment. 

1. This mapping includes:
   • Activities (taking photos, planning events, bringing out trash, paying salaries, cleaning, etc.)
   • Places (buildings, villages, towns, quartiers, land….)
   • Inspirations (people, ideas, causes…)
   • People (those directly involved, those served, those affected, those who support this in any way, those who make decisions about funding, etc.)
   • More-than-humans (trees, animals, plants, rivers, soil, etc.)
2. Having a map of all the components, mark connections between them. What did you learn?

This critical approach encourages focusing on often forgotten components like where we got inspiration from: was that a talk with a friend, a sentence in some interesting book, a particular song, or a poem? It’s also very inspiring to include non-human actors in our map.

I have closed my guest lecture at Háskóli Íslands with another test of the board game we’re working on under the temporary title of Work Simulator: A Day in a Hostel on Snæfellsness. The improved points system made the game more challenging and dynamic. Every gameplay is an occasion to observe new ways of collective problem-solving and group dynamics.

Our practice

A successful example of an artistic intervention is a Community Reading we organized in February in East of the Moon. One day, talking in our office, we expressed that it would be great to bring people (from Hafnar.haus, where our office is located) together around some activity that is not work-related. Let’s follow the direct action components:

Have a pleasant organizing!

Anna Marta Marjankowska