Dipti Desai and Stephen Duncombe: The Activism of Art - A Decentred Anthology [Book review]

This book is a self-described ‘decentred anthology’ on the subject of art and activism, these terms being defined in the broadest possible sense. Working from the assumption that an anthology which strove for comprehensiveness would reproduce the logic of imperialism – in their words ‘a neat typology that allows for dissection and division’ or ‘a detailed map made ready for conquest and control’ – the editors Dipti Desai and Stephen Duncombe affirm that the collection is ‘more akin to an Australian Aboriginal Walkabout: a practice of mobility amongst sites that allows for a passage from one state of understanding to another’. Nevertheless, their introduction opens with two epigraphs which appear to stake out the coordinates of the book: one from Plato, who affirms the risk to society of art, and thus its activism, and another from Audre Lorde, for whom art’s activism in this sense renders it a ‘vital necessity’. Moreover, the editors explicitly frame their effort as an expansion of the canon, insofar as included alongside writers familiar from myriad readers on the subject are ‘voices, positions and perspectives not usually included in discussions on arts and activism’.