inmersiones 2014

resistance + insistence = re(in)sistence
(Congress, hospitality-exhibition and training workshops)

The conceptions of power and resistance, especially those that understand resistance as a process of creation and transformation, have been reference models for many proposals of artistic intervention and have given shape to activist postulates in the world of art. But to resist is not a heroic act because if we saw it like that we would not show any comprehension of the significance of commitment and responsibility that we believe must be linked to artistic practice.

From “Reject rooms” to avant-garde groups, artistic practice has been associated with the idea of opposition and confrontation with the status quo. Today, the need to understand the theory as a practice is an indispensable argument to understand the idea of resistance within the contemporary context; likewise, it is necessary to comprehend the transversal nature of arts as a privileged place from which to act in a specific manner, to have an influence on our day-to-day context.

At Inmersiones we see our activity more and more as an exercise of resistance and as a work of insistence. There is an air of determination and re-occurrence that allow us to find ourselves again in each new call, to re-encounter common ground and “ways of doing things” in which we recognise ourselves as a group. Perhaps for this reason we have always felt connected to forms of cultural resistance that take part with the same spirit and which, beyond opportunity and timeliness, persevere in a project, in an initiative or in a line of work.

“Where there is power there is resistance”. There is not “one” resistance, but many “resistances”, and especially suggestive is the idea of “micro-resistances”. There is not a “pure” form of resistance. “Resistances” are vital forms of energy that exist in society, that are put together and taken apart, that succeed in expressing themselves or which become diluted; without their existence society cannot face the reactive forces that seek conservation and immobility.

For its part, insistence plays an important role in the articulation of resistance because it obliges one to think about one’s own management of time and rhythm. We insist, also, as a form of resistance. To insist on resistance is an act “against” the same presence and against all perpetuated forms of the past in favour of a future time.