Arts and Politics Learning Collaborative
How can art and politics intersect to challenge dominant narratives and create new visions for community?
What are the conditions for artistic production? What kinds of methodologies, forms, fields, and media are accessible to people? To which people? How does art intervene in politics? How is it mobilized — in complicated, uneven, and sometimes contradictory ways — as art and politics are inflected by capitalism? What does art let us say about injustices, and where are the limits to artistic expression?
The Arts and Politics Learning Collaborative critically examines the ways in which art is produced against political backdrops.
We explore a range of perspectives, practices, and forms, remaining open to experiences that might be unfamiliar to us. We maintain a space of creativity and openness in order to appreciate art’s unique ability to defamiliarize the familiar. Arts and Politics aims to cultivate deep noticing, slow, nuanced, collaborative thought, and creativity.
The Learning Collaborative in Action
Coursework
In Rehearsing Liberation: Applied Theatre for Revolutionary Change taught by Assistant Professor of Theatre Jonathan Dent, students ask: How can theatre serve as a rehearsal for liberation? What does it mean to make art in the midst of systemic violence, political unrest, or cultural transformation? They explore applied theatre as a tool for social intervention, collective healing, and revolutionary imagination. Blending theory and practice, students examine how performance has been used across the globe to resist oppression, foster community, and envision new worlds. Rooted in traditions of Theatre of the Oppressed, Black radical performance, ritual practices, and community-based storytelling, the course invites students to become both scholars and practitioners of liberation.
Hampshire College Zine Collection: practicum and research workshop taught by Associate Professor of U.S. Literatures and Cultural Studies Michele Hardesty involves an ongoing audit of the Hampshire College Zine Collection, a non-circulating library of over 1,000 zines created by students in the 1990s. In the late 2000s, the Zine Collective, a student group, reorganized and enlarged the collection, moving it to the Harold F. Johnson Library. Now, in the 2020s, the collection has been recategorized and expanded by a new generation of students, librarians, archivists, and professors. In this practicum and research workshop, students study the politics and ethics of zine librarianship, while learning practical (if unconventional) skills of zine cataloging.
Community
Screening: TikTok, Boom. followed by a Q&A with Hampshire alum filmmaker Shalini Kantayya 94F
Tuesday, April 1 at 6 p.m. | Adele Simmons Hall Auditorium
Dissecting one of the most influential platforms of the contemporary social media landscape, TikTok, Boom., directed by Coded Bias filmmaker Shalini Kantayya, examines the algorithmic, sociopolitical, economic, and cultural influences and impact of the history-making app. This rigorous exploration balances a genuine interest in the TikTok community and its innovative mechanics with a healthy skepticism around the security issues, global political challenges, and racial biases behind the platform. A cast of Gen Z subjects, helmed by influencer Feroza Aziz, remains at its center, making this one of the most needed and empathetic films exploring what it means to be a digital native.
With this new work, Kantayya, a Sundance Fellow, continues her engagement in the space where technology meets, amplifies, and opposes our humanity. Her incisive, current look at the power and complexity of tech continues to advance a conversation that is bettered by her careful stewardship.