On a daily basis we are flooded with images of suffering and pain. While some respond to this with solidarity and empathy, others complain of “compassion fatigue”. In times of multiple crises, it is imperative to (re)examine the mandate of art. What role should art play in the face of rising social injustices? Could critical artistic practices facilitate transnational justice and democracy, protecting and promoting human rights? Or should art remain non-purposive? Given that art functions within structures of capitalism and coloniality, the role of art and art institutions is ambivalent. Can the political labor of training the imagination mitigate unjust structures and practices? In my talk I will address the tension between artivism (intersection of art and activism) and artwashing (capitalist and neoliberal hijacking of the arts) to outline the role of aesthetics in pursuing global ethics and politics.
Nikita Dhawan is Professor of Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Technical University Dresden, Germany. Her research and teaching focuses on global justice, human rights, democracy and decolonization. She received the Käthe Leichter Award in 2017 for outstanding achievements in the pursuit of women’s and gender studies and in support of the women’s movement and the achievement of gender equality. She has held visiting fellowships at Universidad de Costa Rica; Institute for International Law and the Humanities, The University of Melbourne, Australia; Program of Critical Theory, University of California, Berkeley, USA; University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Pusan National University, South Korea; Columbia University, New York, USA. Selected publications include: Impossible Speech: On the Politics of Silence and Violence (2007); Decolonizing Enlightenment: Transnational Justice, Human Rights and Democracy in a Postcolonial World (ed., 2014); Reimagining the State: Theoretical Challenges and Transformative Possibilities (ed., 2019); Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans: Critical Theories of Decolonization (forthcoming). In 2023, she was awarded the Gerda-Henkel-Visiting Professorship at Stanford University and the Thomas Mann Fellowship.