Social conflict, utopia and community synthesis Reflections on the work of Artur Zmijewski Rafael Sánchez-Mateos Paniagua

SOCIAL CONFLICT, UTOPIA AND COMMUNITY SYNTHESIS REFLECTIONS ON THE WORK OF ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI

LOUSE DÉCAILLET

ABSTRACT

This proposal, aimed at exploring the social as that which is characterised by its conflict and not by its consensuality, is based on the work Them (2007) by the Polish artist Artur Zmijewski, which brought together a group of people from different factions of Polish society who were invited to interact without limits, for several days, on a new national flag that each group had previously created. Designed as a participatory and artistic laboratory in which to play with the conflicts and interactions of identity and culture in society, the work invites discussion on the imaginaries that operate in public space, the conflictual value in the constitution of communities, or the importance or irrelevance of culture wars for the story and the re-appropriation of symbols. On the other hand, the fact that Zmijewski was some years later the director of the controversial 7th Berlin Biennial (2012), led by the social movements of the Occupy wave and other struggles such as the Kurdish people, framed in the democratic confederalism, or the Palestinian people, in the resistance to disappearance as a people, also invites the question of the importance of conflict and confrontation in the challenge of imagining community, democratic and emancipatory spaces.

BIOGRAPHY

Rafael Sánchez-Mateos Paniagua (Madrid, 1979) is a teacher, researcher and artist. D. in aesthetics and politics, he has taught at the Faculty of Architecture of the UPSAM, at the Faculty of BBAA and the Universidad de los Mayores of the UCM, at the Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Gregorio Marañón in Toledo and at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton University. As an artist he has worked both alone and with a group and has shown his artistic work in international institutions (33rd São Paulo Biennial, Documenta XII, Steirischer Herbst, Walden 3, Elevate Festival) and national institutions (Musac, La Casa Encendida, Matadero-Intermediae, Tabakalera, Espai D'Art Contemporani de Castelló, Centro Huarte, Artium, Reina Sofía Museum). He has published research texts in Concinnitas, Cairón, Re-Visiones, Art In Translation, Espacio Tiempo y Forma; and other essay or creative texts in Nolens Volens, Diagonal, Eldiario.es, El Estado Mental, Alexia, Ctxt, FronteraD... He is currently working on issues related to popular archives and the aesthetic experience.