As world events rage over the planet, civil life seems to be becoming more and more problematic and unresolvable. The global problems the world is facing politically and economically have lead to more violence, more repression, more rules and regulations, more security devices, more, more… Nevertheless, more freedom and more equality seem a long way ahead. This project, Small Acts of Disobedience, investigates the possibilities left when the margins for freedom seem to be thinning. The invention of attitudes, dispositions, and the resources of micro-politics open up avenues that can unblock a situation. Artistic interventions or productions will not change the world in any direct fashion. They will however encourage shifts, starting with shifts in the imagination. 

An extract from: To Obey or to Disobey an essay by Chantal Pontbriand

Individual actions matter. In many regions of the world, they have triggered sweeping changes to historical systems of power in dictatorial, democratic and revolutionary states alike. These systems have however been replaced, in some states, by new top-down systems of power which embed greater control over citizens than the old. These far-reaching national and global shifts require our full attention as individuals. However, the frameworks that regulate the ‘local’, the ‘specific’ and the ‘personal’ within our lives need no less vigilance; indeed they need frequent re-assessment. While our attention is elsewhere, the abuse or appropriation of these frameworks by private interests and elected national and local representatives, is incrementally eroding the freedoms of the individual and changing our increasingly regulated and privatised, public space.  Sustained actions within public spaces, including performative, co-created ones, can change how and who uses public space. S.A.D is an art project that works in the spaces and frameworks described above.

In 2012, S.A.D assembled a collection of small, discreet, co-created performative actions and interventions, that had been realized by artists with citizens from different communities, as a response to the inequities, discrepancies, absurdities and abuse of historical laws/bye-laws, demands, constitutions and commands of government and commerce as they impact their specific local communities and spaces. Each action, placed the body in a different public space, is a form of local or personal empowerment, cultural disruption and a form of civil disobedience. They are pedagogies of action - small acts of disobedience.

Each time, the S.A.D project is resident in a community, works from the archive and new works created during the residency period, are exhibited or performed in a public space associated with the host organisation’s locality.

Following a community's invitation to the project to take up residence within that community, workshops are held where community ‘action’ proposers, invited guest artists and the project’s legal advisor, come together to discuss the proposed ‘acts of disobedience’. The specific law/bye-law or command as it functions today is interrogated; in some cases revealing its abuse or appropriation by corporate interests. The group devises an action or inaction that addresses the public space issue in question and its legal framework, through performative vocabularies. The workshops are a social experience (hot drinks and baked goods are integral), and support social interaction as a form of cultural production. In order to create a space of equals creating art, all participants, bring an idea or proposal, no bystanders are allowed.

Documentation of some of the individual projects within the framework of Small Acts of Disobedience are accessible on this web site.

“There are so many spaces in London which have a set of bye-laws where almost everything is forbidden, except breathing” Lord Blair, Former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.

S.A.D. PARTNERS

BARKING and DAGENHAM

In February 2015, we were awarded a Creative Barking and Dagenham Landmark Commission Research and Development Award to develop SHORT CUT, by artist Stijn Van Dorpe as part of the project Small Acts of Disobedience for future presentation in the borough. Portland and Stijn spent a month, just prior to the 2015 general election in the borough talking to residents and business owners about SHORT CUT and civil disobedience.

MANIFESTA 9

SMALL ACTS OF DISOBEDIENCE was selected for presentation at MANIFESTA 9 as part of the Parallel Events Programme from May 31 (Preview) to September 30 2012. For Manifesta 9, three works were presented, ocumentation from this presentation is available on this site.

CREATIVE TIME SUMMIT, VENICE BIENNALE, 2015

Presentation, August 10, 2015, Serra dei Giardini, Venezia. Italy by Sherry Dobbin

The 2015 Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum at la Biennale di Venezia took place within the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor. On opening night, August 10, at the Serra Dei Giardini, Sherry Dobbin, presented the ongoing collaborative project, Small Acts of Disobedience. Since 2009, the annual Creative Time Summit has operated as a convening, a discussion, and a platform for the intersection of art and politics. The Venice Art Biennale offered a unique opportunity to gather an international, interdisciplinary community to consider how knowledge is produced and how it comes into contact with civil society.

CRITICAL WRITING

As world events rage over the planet, civil life seems to be becoming more and more problematic and unresolvable. The global problems the world is facing politically and economically have lead to more violence, more repression, more rules and regulations, more security devices, more, more…Nevertheless, more freedom and more equality seem a long way ahead.This project, Small Acts of Disobedience, investigates the possibilities left when the margins for freedom seem to be thinning. The invention of attitudes, dispositions, and the resources of micro-politics open up avenues that can unblock a situation. Artistic interventions or productions will not change the world in any direct fashion. They will however encourage shifts, starting with shifts in the imagination.

Extract from:

To Obey or to Disobey an essay by Chantal Pontbriand