Questioning representations

Learning environments are nourished by the exploration of ancient and contemporary art, which sometimes uses disconcerting, violent, racist, or sexist content. How do we overcome superficial judgments of taste, so as to make space for the aesthetic shock produced by such artwork? A collective discussion in advance of seeing the show or artwork allows for students/learners to situate the piece in its historic, cultural, social, artistic, and theoretical context. Next, the identification, transmission, and practice of analytical tools serve to engage the students/learners in a deep and structured understanding of the elements that make up the artistic creation. This allows them to immerse themselves in the depth of meanings, artistic intentions, and messages conveyed by the performance or piece of art. The critical analysis of art allows for a transdisciplinary and holistic understanding of artistic productions while also allowing students/learners to situate themselves in regard to aesthetics, geographies, and varied artistic genealogies.

From the beginning of their training, students/learners act on internalized constraints and demands, invoke gender stereotypes, and engage in normative iconographies, sometimes under the encouragement of their teachers. The ideals of whiteness, beauty, thinness, and youth often crush all alternatives and influence students’/learners’ self-representations. Thus the dominant visual imaginaries exclude the possibility of thinking through radical proposals or desirable futures while simultaneously silencing minority voices and dismissing racialized performers/artists. Questioning the “default” choices, identifying the genealogies of our collective representations, and rethinking the canons of our artistic disciplines are all ways to avoid perpetuating the creation of racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, classist, and ageist works of art, while also making space for those who have been excluded or who cannot identify with the dominant norms of creation, performance, or training/educational spaces.

A first step towards a transformation of representations is to become aware of the mechanisms of oppression that orient the gaze and objectify bodies – especially female bodies (i.e. the male gaze) or racialized bodies (i.e. exoticization). Exploring alternative imaginaries makes it possible to propose artistic representations that stimulate, blur, trouble, question, destabilize, mock, or even revolutionize the dominant aesthetics. Finding a balance between validating artistic tradition and affirming artistic individualities can be complex, and it is not a question of “formatting” the students’/learners’ imaginations and artistic sensitivities towards a singular aesthetic. There are multiple strategies of subversion in regard to systemic oppressions and these strategies can be combined. There can be an invitation to rethink casting decisions; to stage alternative narratives or speculative fiction; to initiate conversations around representation, including troubled and ambiguous gender play; or to reference self-constructed legacies based on marginalized figures, rituals, or practices (queer, decolonial, zombie, carnivalesque, libertarian, militant, Creole, drag, etc.).