A Guide to Protest Outside the Institution

Editors note:
(A Guide to Protest Outside the Institution” is based on Milo Hatfield’s larger essay “Non-Institutional Art as a Means of Protest: Speed, Urban Space, and Social Commentary” which can be read in full on the author’s Medium account, @milohatfield, linked on our website. 

Following in Shoebox is a condensed, lighter version of the final chapter of that essay, and can be seen here as a guidebook and invitation for further reading. Milo’s wider research revolves around how art can have an effect on its wider context, and how it is not a set of rules, rather a collection of subjective suggestions and thoughts.)  

1. You can’t escape politics
Whether you act with political intention or not does not shield your work from being political. Adverse media attention and skewed rhetoric put creative expression on the political stage when politicians and entrepreneurs feel threatened — after all, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (Hungerford, Molly Bawn, 1878).

You can choose to lean into a societal role that is imposed on you and use it to your advantage, or you can forfeit your vote and agree with the current state of the world by being complacent.

However, your political voice should not be suffocating. Although real-world themes can be draining, it is important to embrace the lighter sides of life. Humour can go a long way to avoid fear-mongering.

The serious and pensive are no less important than the silly and naive.

2. Be realistic about what you can achieve
Swimming against the mainstream has and will always be hard, unforgiving work. Your resistance will encounter resistance and continuously challenge your limits. Following the philosophy of parkour, be ready to fall flat and pick yourself back up again, facing obstacles or manoeuvring around them to, eventually, overcome them.

As you improve and gain footing, explore new horizons and progressively up the ante for yourself. Be persistent, even stubborn. Push forward and consider disobeying the establishment you are fighting. Being resilient in the ensuing game of “cat and mouse” is essential to the survival of graffiti, for example.

A similar logic can be applied to acts of protest: While progress may be slow, the eventual goal of justice will be achieved. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously put it:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (Our God is Marching On, 1965)

3. Know your tools
Challenging yourself will require you to master the tools at your disposal. A graffer balances typography and escape routes while a cinematographer bends light and shadow to their will. Even with the body alone, free runners have a holistic approach to their physical stunts.

Tools can range from traditional mediums to much more metaphorical ideas. It is important to find 

influence in the world around us and integrate it into practice. An initially disjointed collection of sources and references flow into the melting pot considered your “practice”. Embrace unusual combinations and pay homage to works you enjoy.

Once you feel at ease with your medium, dare to push what is accepted, before pushing what is accepted, before pushing what is possible.

Knowing your tools well will allow you to modify them to your liking, and a meticulous approach can provide security when exploring uncharted territory. For example, if you can control how machine-perfect or human-made your work looks or feels, you can experiment with subtly breaking the fourth wall to convey a deeper meaning — painting with shades that weren’t included in the paint-by-numbers starter kit.

An overview of the tools at your disposal will also help you judge when to make room for compromise. At times, it can be worth being lenient with the opposition to establish channels of communication and encourage discussion instead of mutual ignorance.

4. Make friends
Community is essential among creatives, activists, filmmakers, free runners and graffers. To any human, it is important to find peers who share mutual admiration and respect. In most cases, they will fuel each others’ ambition, overachieving their individual capabilities.

It is not only about making allies, but about forging meaningful bonds that are independent from the cause they are currently fighting.

A community thrives off of mutual acceptance and recognition, in turn, a practice that aims to surpass the lifetime of its creators should be open to shifts in tone and style. By avoiding top-down decision-making when it comes to creative decisions and instead trusting and listening to each person’s input, a practice can flourish and become a multiple of its parts.

As long as the parties can agree on a core message, anyone is invited to blend their ideas into the art, according to their skills and interests.

Practices like graffiti and parkour achieve local and global coordination without traditional hierarchy. Inspiring each other iteratively, practitioners allow their medium to adapt to its environment and gain resilience. The conventions aren’t decided upon, they grow into place gradually.

Mutual solidarity and trust mean that members of the communities can easily coordinate and collaborate. They can assemble locally and craft intricate, daring plans. Knowing each other’s strengths and acknowledging each other’s weaknesses is key to dividing hierarchies according to a project’s requirements.

Emulating a sense of family, a tight community needs to take care of its younger, aspiring members. The experienced should pass on their knowledge to the curious if they want it to be of any use in the long run of humanity.

In the end, children make up 30% of the global population, so they may as well be looked after.

5. Put on a show
Following the air of protest, an eye-catching visual style is an important tool when trying to be seen in an oversaturated, commercialised environment. 

A certain shock factor or novelty can go a long way to lure an audience in. Subverting expectations, surprising people, and even shocking them leaves a clearer mark in their minds and is more likely to convince them to engage more deeply with an experience. A dash of theatrical suspense and tension can help when dealing with the unusual, uneasy and uncomfortable.

It is important to avoid empty thrills and baseless spectacle. The drama should serve the narrative and not just be sprinkled atop a work for the mere sake of it. Sticking to the point requires focus, as too many half-baked ideas combined can lead to hollow work that only scrapes the surface of what was 
intended. With an unclear core message, the work could still be promoted as “political”, but — falling flat in its delivery — it would only benefit the acquisitioner’s propagandist narrative, painting them as an ally of an arbitrary cause.

Repetition can be a good tool to reiterate a message and retain an audience’s focus by using a leitmotif, for example. By mentioning a concept multiple times, changing and building on it, you can emphasise different points from a single metaphor as a point of departure.

The repetition signals key moments to the audience and refreshes their attention. Stick to a fun motif and repeat it iteratively.

It is important to have witnesses of your work. Be it through planned showings — like screenings or plays — or by the coincidence of people passing by, you have to ensure that your work is seen, that your voice is heard. Otherwise, you’re back to square one, forfeiting your vote.

Where can you amplify your voice? Where is it needed? Where will it be ignored, and how can you change that? If the creation of a work can convey as much meaning as its outcome, consider where this performative act could take place and who should witness you.

6. Don’t gatekeep
It is essential to offer your unique, “in-the-know” expertise to a broader audience. Sharing content online or simply talking about it to peers from different circles can greatly benefit both parties — especially if they were separated or simply didn’t know each other. There is no point in hoarding knowledge when exchange can only lead to deeper understanding and curiosity for one another. New perspectives and contrasting opinions create insightful discussions and foster the healthy development of a practice that would otherwise go stale, regurgitating and redigesting itself in an endless loop.

We should aim for an Ouroboros of cyclic renewal, not one of self-consumption.

One hand washes the other…