Pressing Revolution

Posada, Gilda; Posada, Gilda

The print has been the preferred medium of radical leftist imaginations and movements from past to present. The printed picture has always been there: from the Paris Commune (1871) to the Cuban Revolution (1953-9); from the anti-colonial struggles and black radical traditions of the twentieth century to the Civil Rights and contemporary LGBTQIA2+ movements; from Indigenous and Environmental activism to labor unionizing efforts across the globe. The print has been a site for a praxis of the radical imagination; it has been and still is weaponized as a medium for change in the fight for equitable futures.

This interdisciplinary and trans-historical panel brings together artists, historians, scholars, and activists to think about the history and the future of this practice of revolution in our contemporary moment. Our approach invites inquiries that attend to the ontology (eg. ephemerality, multiplicity, mobility); function, (eg. revolutionary pedagogy, commemoration, and utopian projection); histories; presence in the public space (eg. circulation, interruption, infiltration); interactions with other media; adaptability and responses to changes for accessibility (eg. new technologies of printing, digital presence, social media). Through this panel we are aiming to initiate a theory of radical print into praxis that takes the medium and encompasses the richness of its past and brings it into conversation with its ever-expanding revolutionary practices and practitioners who continue to utilize it for conceptualizing alternative futurities. The cultural practitioners of this panel offer a path for resistance and revolutionary change that is urgently needed in amidst global climate crisis and authoritarian regimes.

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Pressing Revolution