To Resist is Not Enough

Tania Bruguera
03.31.2017

From: “How Important is Art as a Form of Protest” Frieze.com. Mar. 31, 2017. https://frieze.com/article/how-important-art-form-protest#Tania Bruguera


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Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera lives between Havana, Cuba, and wherever art takes her. She researches ways in which art can be applied to everyday political life, focusing on the transformation of social affect into political effectiveness.

To resist is not enough. Use chants as if they were drums to spread the waves of commitment and slogans to highlight all the things that are wrong. But the streets are not enough. Be an active individual: it shows them you are not afraid. Learn the language of power, use the verbs they are scared of, publicly unveil their worst nightmares – act for them, not for us. Behave on a one-to-one scale with those you consider to be responsible. Laugh intelligently but never before you begin. Laugh after your goal is achieved, after your opposition is tricked, conflicted and incoherent because you took their power away with a simple human gesture. Don’t laugh about what they do, laugh about what you were able to do to them. What we know is not enough. Be persistent without tiring others. Use forms and actions that are legible for the resistance but new to the repressors. The time you have is the time they are using to figure out how to respond. Feeling good is not enough: create a political moment.