What do we mean by the word revolution today? Where are its potential arenas of explosion and suppression? Where to place New York in a context of revolutionary discourse, thought, or practice? How to begin to dismantle the blockages of our own imagination and the material blockages preventing social, political, body, and economic experimentation?

This program will span multiple formats of performance, lecture, conversation, screening, and a walk, providing an opportunity to collectively consider the contemporary political circumstances in which we find ourselves, while looking at specific contexts of research or work done by a group of artists, activists, and researchers over the last few months.

On April 15, a group of artists, agitators, and thinkers gathered at the New Museum to discuss the political challenges each foresaw in our contemporary context and the lived city. Moreover, they addressed the possibility of each engaging in some kind of militant research, locating a problem, finding a group of individuals to engage with in the city, and attempting to understand a situation more profoundly.

Organized by Programs for Research and Outreach (PRO) as part of the exhibition “Museum as Hub: In and Out of Context: REDUX,” this event shifts between elements of a seminar, performance, screening, lecture, discussion, spoken-word event, conversation, and encounter. Those involved include Ayreen Anastas, Emily Forman, Dara Greenwald, Jesal Kapadia, Rene Gabri, Benj Gerdes, Jennifer Hayashida, Karen Hakobian, and Harout Simonian, along with their collaborators and guests. The event migrates around issues such as immigration and work, political suppression and political prisoners, homelessness and housing, sex and transgender politics, and issues of political agency, autonomy, and education in contemporary New York.