Imaginaries in insurgent territories. An anthropological framework to study performance art of the environmental movements in Rosario, Argentina.

Abstract

This article deals with forms of artist protest against the massive fires in the wetlands of the Paraná River delta. Citizens are fighting not only against the unbearable smoke but against the commodification of nature (Svampa, 2014). Around these events, a new wave of social environmentalism (Gutierrez & Isuani, 2014) organizations and actors have been configuring. The environmental movement comprises a variety of heterogeneous actors ranging from citizens, university students, left-wing political groups, conservationist activists, and feminists, who are attracting attention with massive acts of protests by which they express a repertory of new ‘languages of valuation’ (Martinez Alier, 2006). In this essay, we are looking at the artistic forms of protest by Thigra Collective which transgresses the nature/culture duality with their indicial-based (Peirce, 1973; Gell, 2016) signs - artworks and performance actions. By reflecting on Thigra’s performance work we want to show that anti-modern images and meanings are expressed in their artistic interventions by which the group breaks through modern ontologies (Latour, 2001; 2022). In addition, the artists’ work stages the association of human and non-human elements (Latour, 2001) by which they generate an intrusion of objects and performative action in the city’s everyday life.