At a glance: Artivism, exile and diaspora, cultural policy, freedom of artistic expression | For artists and cultural actors in exile, workshop facilitators, cultural and human rights organizations
“This toolkit gives artists in exile the analytical tools to decide for themselves what the political dimension of their work will be.”
“Guide to Artivism in Exile: Between Expression, Struggle, and Societal Transformation”, developed by theatre practitioner and cultural researcher Anas Younes with the support of HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement, examines the conditions under which artists and cultural actors continue to work after displacement, and sets out a methodology for designing artistic interventions with a social and political dimension.
Artists who leave their countries because of political persecution, armed conflict, or restrictions on personal freedoms encounter a further set of constraints in their countries of residence. Support is frequently conditional on work that reflects the priorities of funding institutions, and the category of “migrant art” is used in some contexts to attract Western audiences. The toolkit identifies this as a risk of renewed cultural Orientalism. It also addresses the surveillance and security pressure directed at artists in exile by embassies and intelligence services that seek to silence critical voices abroad, and notes that artistic production alone can be enough to make an artist a political opponent.
The opening chapters establish a theoretical framework for artivism and trace its formation from Dadaism and the Russian avant-garde through Situationism, conceptual art, and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to contemporary digital protest. The analysis draws on Russian formalism and the concept of defamiliarisation, on the Prague Circle’s account of the communicative function of art, and on the Frankfurt School’s critique of the culture industry. The toolkit dates the practice to the early twentieth century and builds its definition from that history.
A critical section then examines art, migration, and cultural politics in specific settings. It compares the position of Arab artists in Berlin, Istanbul, and Paris. It finds that universities, cultural centres, and independent initiatives have established Berlin as a site for critical production in exile; that cultural support in Istanbul tracks the political priorities of the state, and that some artists adapt their work to keep projects running; and that colonial cultural relations in Paris direct artists towards Francophone frameworks, while their audiences remain largely limited to diaspora communities. A related chapter classifies state approaches to culture into four models, the architect, engineer, patron, and facilitator state, and assesses what each means for an artist arriving from elsewhere.
The practical component is a six-section workshop programme, usable by individual artists, by collectives, or by facilitators. It moves through PESTLE analysis of the political, legal, economic, and technological conditions of a target community; the identification and deconstruction of dominant narratives, together with the actors who promote them and the interests they serve; power mapping through the Power Triangle, which covers power over, power with, and power to change, alongside an allies and opponents map and an inventory of available skills, spaces, networks, and resources; the design of a creative intervention with defined objectives and audiences; and the construction of a participatory implementation plan built with the affected community, which the toolkit treats as a partner in shaping form, content, and medium. The final stage asks what changed, who took part, and who stayed away, and treats those answers as material for the next intervention.
Two further chapters address the practice of the individual artist. The first sets out recommendations and warnings drawn from the experience of exiled artists and cultural activists. It addresses the unintentional reinforcement of degrading narratives, the use of artistic work to decorate social realities it does not address, the appropriation of the cultural symbols of marginalised groups, and the reproduction of stereotypical images of the migrant. It holds that aesthetic standards carry the credibility of the message, and that abandoning them weakens the work politically as well as artistically. The second provides a political compass exercise through which artists locate their own work along authoritarian and libertarian, left and right axes, and examine whether work produced with liberatory intent has come to serve conservative or authoritarian discourse.
A closing section presents case studies across theatre, design, digital art, and fictional narrative, selected for their geographic range, variety of artistic form, and differing periods. Some were produced in exile, some at home, and several brought exiled and local artists together.
The toolkit ends with a directory of protection and support systems. It lists organisations, platforms, and initiatives that provide legal assistance, emergency and financial support, artistic residencies and international mobility, digital safety, education and professional development, psychosocial support, and networking, as well as resources on the documentation of artivist practice.
The toolkit is intended primarily for artists, cultural workers, and artistic collectives living or working in exile, migration, and diaspora, and assumes no particular academic background or artistic discipline. It is equally applicable to facilitators developing artivism workshops, to cultural and human rights organisations, residency programmes, and funders working with displaced artists, and to researchers examining art, migration, resistance, and social change.
Anas Younes is a theatre practitioner and cultural researcher and the founder of Culture Tank Factory, a research-based and action-oriented collective working at the intersection of art, culture, activism, academia, and politics.
