Subaltern voices

Private view with discussion Thursday 7/10/2010, 18:00

Exhibition open daily 16:00 – 20:00, 8/10/2010 – 14/10/2010

 Isabel Lima, installation/performance, 2010

sub·al·tern

- Lower in rank, subordinate or second class

- A term that commonly refers to persons who are socially, politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure.

Who are the subaltern? Do they have the ability to politically and culturally represent themselves (to ‘speak’ for themselves)? If not, who has the agency to speak for them? These are not merely questions for academic debate but have real world consequences in how we frame ways forward for human rights activism and cultural representations.

The next instalment of openDemocracy’s Discourses series will be exploring these questions of artistic re-presentation and political representation in the hopes of finding the ‘subaltern voice’.

The event will feature works of artistic re-presentation by Jo Broughton; Isabel Lima; and Elvia Vasconcelos and Laurie Waller.

The opening night will also feature a conversation with openDemocracy contributors Rahul Rao and Michael Saward on possibilities of political and cultural voices speaking to the West from outside the geographic centres of power. The private view opens at 6pm, on Thursday October 7th with the discussion starting at 7pm.  

About the series:

Discourses is openDemocracy’s quarterly series of exhibitions, each with a corresponding panel discussion on a contemporary social / cultural issue covering a wide array of topics and themes: from the role of theory in art to financial crises; from subaltern art and representation to architecture and war. 

These live events will showcase new and emerging artists while allowing the general public to interact with both our writers and the artists, fostering a greater understanding of the artists' work as well as the relationship that exists between art and the social, cultural and political theories which often influences and drives it.

All of these events in the Discourses series are held at the East London venue Drawers gallery (438 Kingsland Road, London E8 4AA).

For more information you can join our facebook group.