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In a time of futureless future, how do we reclaim the means of production of futurity? How do we imagine, pre-form and organize collective futures anew? In this talk, artist and propaganda researcher Jonas Staal will introduce his artistic practice, with a focus on what he terms “organizational art”: artworks that take the form of alternative institutions, such as stateless parliaments, utopian training camps, intergenerational climate courts and experimental biospheres.

The talk will be followed by responses from Carey Young and Tim Lindgren, and an open Q&A session.  

Biographies

Jonas Staal is a visual artist whose work deals with the relation between art, propaganda, and democracy. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing). Together with Florian Malzacher he co-directs the training camp Training for the Future (2018-ongoing), and with human rights lawyer Jan Fermon he initiated the collective action lawsuit Collectivize Facebook (2020-ongoing). With writer and lawyer Radha D’Souza he founded the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (2021-ongoing) and with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union.

Exhibition-projects include Art of the Stateless State (Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2015), Scottish-European Parliament (CCA, Glasgow, 2018), Museum as Parliament (with the Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2018-ongoing) and We Demand a Million More Years (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, 2022). His projects have been exhibited widely at venues such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, M_HKA in Antwerp, Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, as well as the 7th Berlin Biennale, the 31st São Paulo Biennale and the 12th Taipei Biennale. Publications include Nosso Lar, Brasília (Jap Sam Books, 2014), Stateless Democracy (With co-editors Dilar Dirik and Renée In der Maur, BAK, 2015), Steve Bannon: A Propaganda Retrospective (Het Nieuwe Instituut, 2018), Propaganda Art in the 21st Century (The MIT Press, 2019), and Training for the Future Handbook (With co-editor Florian Malzacher, Sternberg Press, 2021). Staal completed his PhD research on propaganda art at the PhD Arts program of Leiden University, the Netherlands. Website: www.jonasstaal.nl. 

Carey Young is based in London, UK. An Associate Professor in Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, she is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Law, Birkbeck, and has a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship through 2022. Young’s solo exhibitions include Modern Art Oxford (2023), Dallas Museum of Art (2017), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2013), Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, and The Power Plant, Toronto (both 2009). Group shows include Busan Biennial (2020), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019), Centre Pompidou (2018, 2015), New Museum, NYC (2011), MoMA/PS1, NYC (2010), Tate Britain (2010) and many others. In 2021, she was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for her photographic project The Surfaces of Law. Young is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Website: www.careyyoung.com.

Tim Lindgren is a Doctoral Candidate at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. He is a member of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities (IILAH) at Melbourne Law School and a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge. His research concerns the field of international law, with a particular focus on peoples’ tribunals, colonialism and the performance of law in informal spaces. In his doctoral project, Tim examines the International Rights of Nature Tribunal and its relationship with international law. He has been a returning lecturer for the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights in Oxford and New York (2018 and 2019) and a Teaching Fellow at Melbourne Law School (2020 and 2021).

Convenors: Steven Howe (University of Lucerne) and Laura Petersen (University of Melbourne).

This event is part of the Futurity Now? workshop, which will run over three days from 6 to 8 September 2022.

All enquiries to lucernaiuris@unilu.ch.