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Paper short abstract:

Taking the example of a political theater project and a city walk in Durban, I discuss how insurgent temporalities are processed into aesthetic forms in an activist way to articulate, perform and embody resistances.

Paper long abstract:

Based on my anthropological fieldwork in urban South Africa, I investigate how political performance projects mold local experiences and activist visions into aesthetic forms. Activism as a medium to reimagine and shape futures is deeply intertwined with collective memories and imaginaries that fold and curl into contemporary ways of being and acting in the world. Considering forms as emergent and contingent becomings, I draw on Handelman‘s notion of „forming form“ which points to the infinite and unpredictable processuality of the social practice of forming (Handelman 2021). I argue that performative projects such as political theatre and public walks create utopian time-spaces of experimentation and imagination that draw political ideas and visions into an embodied and tangible experience. As such, they open up new ways of knowing, and navigating through current challenges, urgencies and (a)synchronicities. Insurgent temporalities endow aesthetic forms with depth: the multi-layered sediments of remembered and anticipated times accumulate in the staged forms and enable new potentials to be tapped in order to trigger socio-political change. Exploring two case studies in Durban, I show how insurgent temporalities are processed in aesthetic forms to articulate resistance and make it accessible to different sets of agents.