Artivism, Politics and Islam–An Empirical-Theoretical Approach to Artistic Strategies and Aesthetic Counter-Narratives that Defy Collective Stigmatisation

What are the interrelations between art and activism, activism in art and the use of art in activism in a context of growing stigmatization of Muslims? To what extend have the arts been political until today and how does political activism resort to art (poetry, performance, painting, photography, music, video etc.)? Starting from the Situationists’ movement and following Rancière’s “Politiques du sensible”, we reflect on the link between the aesthetic and the political. After a conceptual overview about artivism and political engagement as a research topic and related methodological challenges, we provide concrete examples for artistic strategies, namely how Muslims engage in various media in order to reverse stigmata and collective representations. We give insights from three research projects, “Undocumented Mobility (Tunisia-Switzerland) and Digital-Cultural Resources after the ‘Arab Spring’”, “(In)visible Islam in the City – Material and Immaterial Expressions of Muslim Practices in Urban Spaces” (both funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) and the ERC project “ARTIVISM. Art and Activism. Creativity and Performance as Subversive Forms of Political Expression in Super-Diverse Cities”. In each case, Muslims (mostly from North Africa and from Senegal) develop music- and performance-based artivistic strategies in order to counter stigmatization and suspicion of terrorism.