Esther Destres

The interdependence and diversity of our lifestyles linked to globalisation and digitalisation, as well as the social and environmental emergency we are facing, question our current exclusive and inegalitarian organisations and reactivate the need for democratic spaces for the fabrication of the commons. In fact, through the making of the commons, necessary conditions for collective intelligence emergence capable of innovation, we are experimenting with a radical democratic practice of individual and collective empowerment in acting on our environments. The artistic practices when they develop themself in a direct relationship to the environments in which they seek to activate changes seem able to participate in the emergence of these commons that we need in order to address contemporary issues.

This secondment in Palermo aims at exploring the role of artistic practices within societal transformations. Through the observation of particular initiatives developing in Palermo and other places in Italy, the goal is to observe what are the condition needed for the development of artistic experiences capable of activating democratic spaces. Some artists develop their practices in a close relationship with society and are engaged in contemporary societal issues, thus reactivating the experiential device of art. Whether they are: a theatre laboratory, artistic interventions in public spaces, a collective project in a rural village, etc., by proposing to people a sensitive experience to their environment and their organisation systems, these practices seem capable of initiating displacement and encounter around the articulation of diverse interests. Doing so, they participate in reinforcing the actors and inhabitants involved. These contextualised and open processes participate in creating on a micro-scale the conditions for a radically democratic assessment of people capacities to act on their environments and organisations. What are the necessary conditions for the development of these initiatives and what are their support? What tensions and challenges do they experience?