Son[i]a #119
Allan Sekula
The artist, writer and critic Allan Sekula (Erie, Pennsylvania, United States, 1951 – 2013) is the author of numerous projects in which he reflects on the role of the documentary within the artistic medium. Part of the historic social realism movement, Sekula’s work uses photography mainly to document fragments of contemporary reality that tend to be strategically ignored by the media universe of globalisation.
Son[i]a talks to Allan Sekula about the relationship between art and photography, about artistic activism, the role of the artist in the public sphere and “Waiting for Tear Gas” (1999-2000), a documentary project on the anti-globalisation protests in Seattle that is part of the MACBA Collection.
Marcelo Expósito
In FONS ÀUDIO #59, artist, writer and activist Marcelo Expósito revisits his work in the MACBA Collection Photowritings 2011-2019 (Dedicated to Allan Sekula), a personal, sometimes intimate look at a series of collective experiences of self-determination and resistance. Marcelo talks about demonstrations, mass events and the occupation of public space, but also about micropolitical space and forms of bonding, empathy and solidarity.
Charmaine Chua
In this podcast, Singaporean organizer, writer, and scholar Charmaine Chua shares her research on the containerization of global logistics from the vantage of the Global South. Her journey begins aboard a container ship, embodying ethnographic observation and field work, as well as a radical rereading of the naval archive records of the colonial project. The mix of methodologies, experiences and data highlights the incongruities and the environmental, legal, and labour abuses that appear in the capitalist wet dream of efficiency in global trade.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of our conversation with Bouchra Khalili that we were unable to include the first time around. We talk about her relationship with photography and the haunting presence of history in it.
Martha Rosler
Martha Rosler analyses and questions the proliferation of surveillance systems and self-representations in contemporary society, while telling us about artistic circles in the seventies, the seminal video art scene, and the need to keep chasing utopias.
Michael Hardt
Interview with the political philosopher Michael Hardt about what role revolutions have today as spaces for new social creation.