In the face of rising
authoritarianism and on the heels of urgent struggle, autonomy calls
to us. How might we excavate the theory and history of autonomous
politics to arrive at new possibilities for radical democracy and the
radical imaginary? How can we rethink the ways in which artistic
autonomy is theorized and practiced beyond the shrunken horizon of
liberal individualism? How might we understand political and artistic
autonomies as linked, rather than diametrically opposed? And what
role does radical pedagogy have to play in all of this?
Framed
by the thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, and engaging with Marxist,
Black Radical, and Feminist approaches to liberation, as well as
movements such as Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Letters
on the Autonomy Project
understands autonomy to be the capacity of a society, a community or
an individual to modify its form. As Castoriadis argues, the struggle
for self-determination requires unlimited questioning of the way
things are, but also that we do or make something new in light of
this interrogation. Autonomy is thus equally a project for thought,
for education, for politics, and for art.
Stylistically,
these open letters, addressed inclusively to artists, activists, and
academics, are modeled on the philosophical letters of Friedrich
Schiller on the one hand and the revolutionary communiqués of the
Zapatistas on the other. Performing a kind of writing-as-praxis, they
seek to grasp the potential of our moment with reference to
historical and contemporary instances of political autonomy, notions
of artistic autonomy, and art practices that connect the two. They
also look at the possibilities of educating for autonomy, which
cannot itself be taught. If we are indeed living in a time of
creative struggle to remake the whole of society, then an
understanding of the autonomy project – and how theory, pedagogy,
activism, and art might contribute to it – is of burning relevance.