Norient: "Resist Or Obey: On Resistance As Civil Duty"

“Your silence will not protect you.” What the feminist activist and poet Audre Lorde wrote in 1977, is also relevant in 2022. Yet, the times have changed. Conflicts have never been louder, as shouting slogans on the streets is accompanied by outrages on social media. Resistance is still nothing less than a civil, often active duty. Yet, for example, what if one were to take a step back, and “prefer not to” obey.

Multiple conflicts in multiple areas of the world demand multiple forms of resistance. On this panel, Norient curators Sandra Passaro and Philipp Rhensius assemble musicians and cultural producers to discuss the potential and pitfalls of resistance, protest, and democracy today.

How to reclaim resistance when its concept has been appropriated by anti-democratic or racist forces? What role can artists play here, and how can they avoid becoming a blunt token for resistance that is only to be performed but not lived in everyday life? If the subversive potential of music has become domesticated through context-free online streaming, could bypassing algorithms be a new form of resistance?