Tactical tools
Tools for subverting and intervening in situations, for protesting playfully, for disrupting the status quo and making strange.
Photo: CIRCA
CLANDESTINE INSURGENT REBEL CLOWN ARMY / CIRCA (UK)
2003 - 2005
Lawrence M. Bogad, Jay Jordan, Hilary Ramsden and collaborators
WHAT is the practice?
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (also known as CIRCA and Clown Army) was an anti-authoritarian left-wing activist group that used clowning and non-violent tactics to act against corporate globalization, war, capitalism, and heavy policing of protests, among other issues.
WHY was it initiated?
CIRCA helped popularize the form of protest known as rebel clowning, which combines clowning performance art and activism. It is an offshoot of tactical frivolity and is inspired by Bakhtin’s Rabelaisian carnival, Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, bouffon, and historical fools.
HOW does it work?
One of the key goals of the Clown Army was to subvert the expected behaviors and concept of protestors, to activists, authorities, and the media alike. As part of the Clown Army’s satirical performance of military, the clownbattants often march in pseudo-military formation (then break out into clown chaos at any moment) and perform the CIRCA Clown Salute, which involves using one’s right hand to thumb their nose, wiggling their fingers, and grinning. The Clown Army did not respond to police officers with confrontation; rather, they aim to confuse them by treating them as ‘friends’. This fearlessness and refusal to acknowledge the power dynamic of police and protestors is meant to take power away from the authorities. They fraternize with the police, playing games and collaboratively building on their orders to establish a human connection and break stereotyping.
KEY TOOLS:
- Tactical tools
- Material tools
Learn more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clandestine_Insurgent_Rebel_Clown_Army
Photo: Harmattan Theatre
Mar Português (PT)
2012
May Joseph, Harmattan Theatre
WHAT is the practice?
Springing from Harmattan Theatre’s oceanic praxis, Mar Português draws attention to the colonial history of Portugal, focusing on one of its central figures, namely the navigator and explorer Vasco da Gama. The performance represents an artistic reenactment of da Gama’s hallucinatory final moments, who died in Cochin (Kochi), India, after contracting a tropical illness on his last expedition to the region.
WHY was it initiated?
The creator of Mar Português and one of the founders of Harmattan Theatre, May Joseph, is a descendant of the people from the Malabar Coast in India, formerly colonized by da Gama during his expeditions. Her reading of Mar Português by Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, a poem in which the Portuguese sea is described in a dichotomous fashion as a site of imperial might but also as an archive of colonial erasure, served as a catalyst for the performance. The site of the intervention, Terreiro De Paco in Lisbon, is the historical point where Vasco da Gama’s ships arrived after his first expedition to India, carrying slaves, silk and spices. Performing on this site meant to channel the resonances of Portugal’s colonial past into the present.
HOW does it work?
During a two-hour-long performance, a dancer playing the didgeridoo engulfs the site in a mournful melancholia. Another character, dressed in white, moves and undulates her body, following the motions of the Tagus River that flows near them. A final figure that enters the scene, wearing a stark black attire, walks among the gathered audiences, depicting the ghost of Vasco da Gama’s daughter haunting the shores of contemporary Lisbon.
KEY TOOLS:
- Tactical tools
- Fieldwork tools
- Materiality tools
Learn more:
Photo: Rebeca Parbus
A MOMENT (EST)
19 February - 3 March 2024
Estookin, Rebeca Parbus
WHAT is the practice?
Shortly before the Estonian Independence Day and the 2nd anniversary of the beginning of the Ukrainian Invasion, digitally altered pictures of Tallinn cityscape in ruins due to war showed up in big billboards around the city. The pictured city space copied the location where it was placed. Most of the billboards were placed in Lasnamäe, Õismäe and Mustamäe, the neighbourhoods in Tallinn with the largest Russian populations. The artists themselves said the locations depended mostly on funding. “Hetk” means “a moment”.
WHY was it initiated?
According to the artist, the exhibition aimed to bring the wars happening and affecting us from afar back into people’s minds. In addition, it provokes their imagination and also makes people aware of the things that one might be grateful of.
HOW does it work?
Digitally altered pictures of the city were shown on massive billboards around Tallinn. The pictures depicted a city in ruins, the photos matching the location around them.
KEY TOOLS:
- Tactical tools
- Fieldwork tools
- Material tools
Learn more:
https://www.estookin.com/moment
https://arterritory.com/en/visual_arts/topical_qa/27046-the_fragile_moment/
Photo: Frej Schmedes
BECOMING SPECIES (DK)
2020 - present
Becoming Species
WHAT is the practice?
Becoming Species is an activist performance collective that focuses on species survival, biodiversity, and the current climate crisis. It is an artistic inquiry and call to action that seeks to give nature a voice, movement, and expression.
WHY was it initiated?
Becoming Species is a pacific rebellion that not only advocates for human rights, but also for against the dualism between nature and humans. Nature, as the basis of life, cannot be separated from us: vegetation and animals need to be defended as well. Becoming Species uses artivism to investigate non-human rights in a performative research praxis. Their performances create new narratives and tell new stories from the perspectives outside the anthropocentric lens.
HOW does it work?
Becoming Species makes use of local artistic exploration to connect global climate voices and calls from endangered species. They do so by creating nature-inspired costumes and organising sit-ins, processions and interventions both in urban and naturalistic settings.
KEY TOOLS:
- Tactical tools
- Material tools
Learn more
Zine: https://issuu.com/becomingspecies/docs/becoming_species
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becoming_species/