Epistemological shifts, power imbalances and conflicts at documenta fifteen

Decolonial cultural policy conceptions beyond Eurocentric universalism

Bibliographic Data

ID7990803
AuthorsMeike Lettau (0000-0001-6314-6750, Zeppelin Universität gemeinnützige GmbH, corresponding author), Özlem Canyürek (0009-0009-2712-4066, Independent cultural policy researcher and lecturer)
Year2024
Volume31
Issue2
Pages212-229
Publication date2024-03-04
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Cultural Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1028-6632 • E-ISSN: 1477-2833
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10286632.2024.2316101
OpenAlexW4392379571
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited24

Focusing on the epistemic dimension of exclusionary institutional structures in the German cultural sector in relation to cultural production, this article searches for decolonial cultural policy conceptions that are critical of knowledge-related power imbalances and their entanglements. By taking the international art exhibition documenta fifteen in Kassel in 2022 as a case study, the paper examines the community- and collectivity-based practices and methodologies introduced by the Indonesian artist collective ruangrupa. In particular, this empirically grounded inquiry focuses on ruangrupa's lumbung values as a proposition of epistemic pluriversality. In this way, it also reveals various conflicts that occurred before and during the fifteenth edition of the exhibition, arisen from epistemological differences in perspectives, narratives, aesthetics and artistic methodologies between colonial and capitalism-critical cultural practices and Western art institutions. Following the tenets of the decolonial turn and decolonial thought, the paper explores alternatives to the dominant Eurocentric universalism of knowledge through the example of documenta fifteen, transcending the binary of either/or and advocating pluriversality as a universal option, rather than Eurocentric universalism as a singular totality, as proposed by Walter Mignolo. Following Catherine Walsh, the quest for the recognition and dissemination of pluriversal perspectives is intrinsically linked to the search for other ways of knowing, thinking, theorising and being that resist totalising power. In doing so, the authors ultimately seek to outline some attributes of decolonial conceptions of cultural policymaking, aiming at reducing epistemological inequalities in accessing cultural production for marginalised and racialised artists and cultural practitioners

Aesthetics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · Universalism · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Decolonial Thought and Epistemologies · Globalization and political ideologies · Law · Philosophy

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