Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change

Strategies and Possible Locations

Abstract

This paper examines whether Art and play can create an arena for activism and change, and if so, under what conditions this can take place and what strategies must be employed for its resistance to be effective. For the purpose of my inquiry, I link Art and play together and see them as natural, inseparable partners. This line of thought follows Friedrich Schiller and Herbert Marcuse, but ideas of thinkers, such as Johan Huizinga and Charles Fourier, can also be traced at the root of this approach. I argue that in its traditional institutions, especially museums, Art cannot constitute an arena for creating meaningful change in society and unable to generate resistance and change within its own socially accepted frameworks. A real change brought on by Art and play can happen in arenas that are fundamentally alternative to the institutional Art world. Finally, the discussion will turn to the alternative arena, the scene of communal creative activity, where Art and play create a change and have a meaningful effect on social processes.