Aria Spinelli
Horizontality: Practicing the Imaginary of Collectivity and Engagement

‘It is the walk, the process of questioning as we walk that enriched our growth, and helped us discover that strength is different when we are side by side, when there is no one to tell you what you have to do, but rather when we decide who we are.’ (Sitrin, 2006) This workshop questions the concepts of collectivity and engagement in the the field of art and curatorial studies. It is inspired by the notion of ‘horizontalidad’, a term which was used to describe the social mobilization after the Argentinean crisis between 2001 and 2002. During the two-day workshop students will discuss exemplary texts by intellectuals such as J.K. Graham and Gibson, Cornelius Castoriadis and Marina Sitrin. Students will also be asked to exemplify certain notions (such as emancipation, radical imaginary and horizontality) through a series of performative and collective actions. Thus the group will create grounds for embodying and experiencing gathering, participatory practices and traversal collaboration. The two-day workshop hopes to achieve and set in motion a critical reflection on the potentialities of the imaginary of collectivity and engagement, reflected in both artistic practices and social behavior.