THE THEORY ON CRAFTING JUSTINCE & WAGING ART UPON LAW
The Theory Behind The Project....
This is a post-postmodern guide for those who wish to revive virtue in the fields of art and Law. It encourages readers to make womanist interventions into traditional legal pedagogy.so as to transform theatres of law into theatres of the oppressed.
Written by an artist and lawyer rooted in a long history of “artivism” in the United States, this is a philosophic guide to crafting socially-impactful artworks which can serve as legal evidence to drive us out of the contemporary abyss and into a better future. It implores artists to create with an eye not towards any art gallery—which never fail to fetishize and commodify artworks—but instead, to a court of law, where their creations will be taken far more seriously.
Rallying against the (post-? pre-? have-we-ever-truly-been-?)modern abyss of manufactured meaninglessness, this guide encourages artists to revive notions of truth and justice vis-à-vis an “artivist” practice. It builds off of the promise of the artist-activist (“artivist”) as introduced in my book review of Professor Yxta Maya Murray’s We Make Each Other Beautiful: Art, Artivism, and the Law, in which I echoed Murray’s call for lawyers to collaborate with artivists.
This polemic offers a balm for artists, activists, lawyers, and other human beings seeking a—disciplined, real, hopeful—practice to face the current— hysteric, cynical, hopeless—political climate. For everyday people and burnt-out activists alike, it gives us something productive to do: some clearer way to fight and something particularly universal to fight for.