Activist/Aesthetics Conference: A Reflection
Avani Tandon Vieira, Lauryn Anderson, and Anna Corrigan
activist/aesthetics is a horizontally organised research collective that studies the intersections of material culture and progressive politics. Originating as a reading group at the University of Cambridge, a/a highlights the collective efforts of academics, artists, and activists working in the joint spaces of visual culture and political organising. We can be contacted at activistaesthetics2023@gmail.com.
Avani Tandon Vieira is a PhD candidate and Gates scholar at the University of Cambridge. As a curator, archivist, and academic, Avani is interested in material culture, minority expression, and documentary practice. Her current research focuses on independent publishing in late twentieth century India. Alongside a/a, she helps run the Pind Collective and the Museum of Ephemera.
Anna Corrigan is a PhD candidate and Gates scholar at the University of Cambridge, whose current research investigates the relationship between assembled art and political assembly in the Southern Cone of Latin America from the 1970s through today. Anna also works as an indexer, editor, and translator of academic and literary texts.
Lauryn Anderson is a PhD candidate in English and a Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholar at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis explores the concept of archival and/or documentary poetry in global anglophone poetics, paying particular attention to the politics of mediation. Outside of activist/aesthetics, she co-leads the University-funded research network, Ambivalent Archives.