This panel presents a transnational group of speakers from four different countries whose interdisciplinary work exists at the frontier of practice-led artistic research. Their projects explore the potential of art as method for reparative world building and future imaginings. The presentations will examine the links between: protest, painting, ritual, magic, and technology at the intersection of art to expose how they work in encounters and as sites of resistance. The affective potential of visual, collective, and ritualistic forms to interrogate, subvert, and reimagine egalitarian futures offers rich ground for investigation. Panelists will draw on the analytical frameworks of new materialisms (Barad, Coole, Frost, Golding), feminisms (hooks, Lorde, Grosz, Hester), queer theories (Butler, Halberstam, Muñoz, Sedgewick), decolonial practices (Hall, Manning, Somerville, Tate), and visual studies (Jones, Eshun, Graw, Robinson). The panel structure will start with a brief introduction by the chair, followed by each panelist presenting theoretical-visual papers. Subverting assemblages of the hegemonic patriarchal contemporary through production of ethical and relational change is crucial. Unfolding in individual and socio-political realms that explore liberatory aims, these actions form the foundation for a radical egalitarian futurity that this panel seeks to render.

Panel Convener and research presentation-Shannon Forrester

Title: Affective Encounters, Future Imaginaries, Visions for Tomorrow in the Now

Panel Chair-KJ Surkan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Cambridge, MA USA
-Reparative Painting-Affective Encounters with Hopeful Futurity-Shannon Forrester, Royal College of Art (RCA) London, UK
-Ritual Art Practice and Collective Transformation-Col Self, Royal College of Art (RCA) London, UK
-Activating Radical Empathy Through Fine Art Practices and Pedagogies-Mariana Aboim, Royal College of Art (RCA) London and Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, NL
-Marginalizing Code: Changing Encoded Gender Bias in the Online Public Sphere, Cicilia Östholm, Royal College of Art (RCA) London, UK