Hannah Arendt’s Action Theory, Aesthetics and Feminist Curatorial Praxis

Abstract

This article considers the relationship between action (Arendt) and aesthetics in curatorial projects with feminist concepts. I suggest that Hannah Arendt’s theory of action provides the connection between aesthetics and the notion of action in feminist curatorial praxis. The vision of feminism discussed here refers to the desire to understand matters from the specific point of view of women and considers the distribution of power and potentiality in various levels of life. The feminist theory in this research aims to reveal, show, and transform cultural, historical and social structures. From a broader perspective, living in the neoliberal realities alongside capitalist and patriarchal state structures provides multiple reasons and a rationale for collectively forming a new foundation of resistance. Feminism emerges in and through curatorial actions involving varied artistic expressions of freedom, discontent, etc. Four case studies concerning women as subjects are investigated, whose subject is migration and border-crossing, and both works and exhibitions are compared in terms of their curatorial approach, the level of action and their aesthetics methods.

Keywords

• Hannah Arendt
• aesthetics
• feminist curation