Playing with citizenship
NSK and Janez Janša
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4525167 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E Wilmer, S E Wilmer (Trinity College Dublin, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 5-6 |
| Pages | 827-838 |
| Publication date | 2012-08-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Citizenship Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13621025.2012.698513 |
| OpenAlex | W1994302917 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 7 |
Because of the practices of modern governments, the individual must be a citizen of a state or otherwise be reduced to a liminal status, deprived of human rights. Often, national governments in Europe deal with those who are to be excluded from citizenship in an ad hoc and covert manner, frequently incarcerating people for months before deporting them at the same time as trying to keep the issue out of the public eye. However, theatrical performance can reveal what has been kept invisible by national governments and raise uncomfortable questions about prevailing nationalist ideologies. In this article, I will focus on the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) and the Janez Janša projects that have exposed the role of citizenship practices which jeopardize the migrant and the stateless. In a subversive performative gesture, the NSK has formed its own state, created diplomatic embassies and issued their own passports. In an equally subversive act, three Slovenian-based artists legally changed their names to Janez Janša and turned their national identity cards into works of art, calling attention to the control that nation-states maintain over personal identities. These artists ironize nationalist ideologies and orientalist tendencies by using a tactic of over-identification and in doing so they expose some of the inadequacies in policies concerning citizenship
Aesthetics · Art · Citizenship · Covert · Ideology · Liminality · Media studies · National identity · Nationalism · Performative utterance · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Stateless protocol · Anthropology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Gender Studies · Law · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Theatre and Performance Studies
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2022 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |