Art & Democracy

Project Partner:
National Sculpture Factory

Contact:
www.corkcaucus.org
www.nationalsculpturefactory.com

Date: 29 June 2005
Venue: ICD, Firkin Crane

Project Description:
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak spoke about art, its audience, its desire for critical engagement, and its confrontation with the rational choice theory that negotiates a "minimal" requirement for democracy.

Professor Spivak is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities and Director of the Center for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, where she teaches English and the Politics of Culture. She was educated at the University of Calcutta, and came to Cornell University in 1961 to finish doctoral work. She is active in the International Women's Movement, the struggle for ecological justice, and rural literacy. Her influence has been felt in Art and Architecture, Law and Political Science, in curatorial practices here and abroad. Her work has been translated into many languages. Her focus has remained education in the Humanities as the best lasting weapon to combat imperialism.