ARTISTIC ACTIVISM AT PROA21: THE STREET AS AN ARCHIVE
PROA21 presents Disobedience Archive (the street), a mobile and evolving exhibition on view until July 2025 that highlights the relationship between artistic practices and political action.
Curated by Marco Scotini, the exhibition brings together 36 video works by international artists and collectives, organized in a three-part cycle, with 12 videos in each phase that are periodically renewed. Each phase offers a simultaneous journey through the four thematic axes that structure the project: gender disobedience, insurgent communities, radical ecologies, and diasporic activism.
Conceived in 2005 by Scotini, the Disobedience Archive operates as a mobile and expanded platform that explores the intersection of art and political action through audiovisual practices. In its various exhibition formats, the project functions as a contested space—one of multiple voices sharing time and space, and actively engaging with the context in which it is presented.
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Marcelo Expósito con Nuria Vila. Tactical Frivolity + Rhythms of Resistance (Frivolidad táctica + Ritmos de resistencia), 2007. (Desobediencia de género). Cortesía de PROA21
As an archive, it invites us to rethink how collective memories are organized, challenging the notion of the archive as a fixed and unquestionable record. Disobedience is thus proposed as a methodology to complicate both the understanding and preservation of the past, as well as the construction of the present.
Since its creation, the project has been presented 20 times across different countries, and in 2024, it is part of the Contemporary Core section of the 60th Venice Biennale. With each iteration, the archive is reconfigured, adopting diverse forms—such as a parliament, a school, or a community garden—in an effort to reject any static or closed notion of what an archive can be.
The Buenos Aires presentation takes to the streets, featuring a powerful selection of works created between 1999 and 2023. These are complemented by a robust public program designed to accompany and expand upon the exhibition's content, fostering active dialogue with the current local context. The show thus becomes a space for memory and analysis, as well as for gathering and learning.
“Disobedient images do not conform to the norms of any exhaustive cultural category. They are multiple, heterogeneous, polyphonic, and resist definitions that codify and reify the spaces of art and politics,” explained Scotini. He added: “For PROA21, Disobedience Archive embodies the street as one of the symbolic spaces of collective subjectivity and new forms of social protagonism.”
The artists featured in the exhibition are: Navjot Altaf, Ravi Agarwal, Atelier Impopulaire, Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée (AAA), Ege Berensel, Ursula Biemann, Seba Calfuqueo, Simone Cangelosi, Libia Castro - Ólafur Ólafsson, Chto Delat, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), Marcelo Expósito - Nuria Vila, Ali Essafi, Etcétera / Movimiento Internacional Errorista, GAC / Grupo de Arte Callejero, María Galindo and Mujeres Creando, Khaled Jarrar, Sara Jordenö, Sanjay Kak, Karrabing Film Collective, Bani Khoshnoudi, Pedro Lemebel, LIMINAL - Border Forensics, Angela Melitopoulos, Mao Chenyu, Carlos Motta, Pınar Öğrenci, Daniela Ortiz, Paloma Polo, Oliver Ressler, Güliz Sağlam, Roy Samaha, Tita Salina - Irwan Ahmett, Sim Chi Yin, Urbonas Studio, Mohanad Yaqubi.
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