Artists & their bios

As part of this exciting project, D.Rad utilises the universal language of art as a means of exploring the concept of ‘Complicating the narrative’, while also engaging with findings from project reports. The collected works culminate in this exciting exhibition of works in Belgrade and Paris. The core concepts of the exhibition are that of complicating violent extremist binary narratives of the other: to disrupt toxic narratives and shine a light on commonalities between, and the complexities of, perceived them-and-us characters, including highlighting shared grievances, but also how the fear of the other feeds not only one’s own imagined cause but paradoxically, the ‘other side’ also.

Complicating the narrative means finding and including the details that don’t fit a coherent narrative – on purpose, and exploring how stories and narratives of the other can unite or divide us. It means exploring common spaces where tensions and harmonies exist simultaneously. Our curated research exhibition aims to get at the slippery, difficult-to-determine characteristics of the binary narrative often portrayed by extremist hate groups, and to challenge the power relations of group identity while offering viewers an opportunity to reflect on the human capacity for pride and humility: the interdependence of involvement and detachment and being able to see oneself from a distance as one might be perceived by others Within understandings of challenging otherness, it is the everyday micro-interactions that occur between individuals that are argued as the underpinnings of belonging. Realising that you find something of yourself in the other, as well as something of the other in yourself, can be a realisation that impacts deeply on our consciousness and outlook for the rest of our lives. Across all sectors of our global world, individuals share common interests: the clothes that we wear, the music we listen to, the movies we watch and the technologies we prefer. We have shared favourite authors, styles of clothing, favourite foods, and hobbies, and far from being situated in simple binary positions, human beings share commonalities in the very ways in which we live our everyday lives.

The exhibition endeavours to compare, negotiate and reflect the self and others – and to challenge the single ‘us-versus-them’ story and unpick the overlapping narratives of individual and shared identity. This has been a journey of collaboration between academics, artists and some community members – whose voices and experiences are narrated and shared within some of these works. The presentation of these varied but connected narratives, portrayed in different formats shines a spotlight on the process of academic and creative engagement with the public, and the results it can deliver inside and outside academia.

ARTISTIC ENGAGEMENT

Our curator, Dr Maggie Laidlaw worked with six international artists for this exhibition. The artists were invited to respond to the written curatorial framework outlining the nature of the D. Rad project. Their role here was to add richness to the ideas and findings already woven through the research project and to interpret and communicate them to a broad international public. Our artists bring with them biographies and histories that are rich and diverse. With experiences ranging from working with radicalized youth, or arts that are embedded in community engagement, to performance, activist and satirical art, our artists explore, in innovative and creative ways, concepts of belonging (or not belonging) in shared spaces and the ways in which different resources and environments aid or impede the single story/binary narrative.

Our artists capture, in creative forms, facets of our project framework, weaving them into inventive audio-visual journeys foregrounding the everyday narratives of challenging otherness. The final works created by the artists are inspired by, and consist of, concepts of belonging and inclusion within the context and processes of disrupting toxic narratives, while also challenging the symbolic power of negative online imagery – and to make use of these in physical and online public settings for more inclusive purposes. Digital and analogue mediums are specifically chosen to complement one another by linking the time-based elements within each: Histories, futures, processes, and the everyday. Drawing on the understanding that what the artist leaves out is as important as what is presented, their nonliteral and abstract elements allow the viewer to make a connection with the works, making the content more relevant through a shared understanding of lived experiences.

Art and artists are crucial to challenging the boundaries of a society’s established limits. They encourage us to shift the paradigms of our thinking, to reach beyond what we think we know, and to imagine other, albeit sometimes disturbing, ways of being together.

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