Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T04:26:33.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Contingent Encounters: Artists, Artisans and Amateurs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2021

Siobhan Shilton
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Get access

Summary

Chapter 3 develops the idea that contingent encounters are rooted in diversely transnational aesthetics of contingency, but also that this art invents new combinations or strategies specifically to exceed iconic visions. It focuses on work that generates contingency by involving local or regional traditions of weaving and ceramics, as well as artisans themselves. This chapter also addresses art that engages spectators through recent transnational practices, including interactions characteristic of uses of social media. I show that this work diverges from conventional understandings of chance aesthetics and participatory art. I also argue that participatory works exhibited in physical and virtual public spaces, as well as in galleries, blur the boundaries between sites which are conventionally viewed as separate and as associated with either art or activism. I explore contrasting means of evoking encounters between artist and artisans in work on Tunisia by Majd Abdel Hamid (textiles), Selma and Sofiane Ouissi (video performance) and Sonia Kallel (audio tour and video installation) I then address installations by Collectif Wanda, Mouna Jemal Siala and Wadi Mhiri, and Febrik, which involve spectators in ‘reordering space’ or in making alternative ‘icons’ of Tunisia today or of the revolutions in Tunis, Cairo and Damascus.

Type
Chapter
Information
Art and the Arab Spring
Aesthetics of Revolution and Resistance in Tunisia and Beyond
, pp. 117 - 165
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×