We are aware that this moment requires unique efforts to concentrate, imagine, and think about the near future. We are also confident that by continuing and opening forums of exchange, we can share our mutual challenges, learn from one another, and continue to foster critical thinking.
In this context, we are pleased to announce the completion of the second issue of the INSITE Journal, Social Beings, with contributions by distinguished curators and scholars. For ESSAYS, the critical theorist and filmmaker Elizabeth Povinelli delves into notions of inheritance, colonialism, and belonging from both official and personal accounts, while the art historian and critic Grant Kester analyzes the shift of socially engaged art from “aesthetic autonomy” to “cognitive autonomy” through notions of tactical knowledge, critique, and praxial education. For INSITE PAPERS we are republishing a revised version of a text by psychoanalyst and cultural critic Suely Rolnik, Life for Sale (Farsites catalogue, inSite_05), in which she addresses subjectivity in relation to human sensibility, power, and control. The IN FOCUS section has contributions by curator Tobias Ostrander, who analyzes the work of artist Paul Ramírez Jonas, Mi Casa, Su Casa (inSite_05), from a “Derridean perspective,” in which the notion of hospitality functions as a basis to interweave symbols, ethics, and immigration. Also, art historian and critic Elvan Zabunyan discusses two works by artist Lorna Simpson: Call Waiting (INSITE97) and Duet/Dueto (inSITE2000) in relation to abstraction, language, and memory. The projects featured in the DOCUMENTS section are Car Park (INSITE94), a social experiment of collaborative activity by artists Steve Matheson, Nina Katchadourian, and Mark Tribe, and Cross the Razor (INSITE94), a work by artist Terry Allen that opened up an engaging interlocutory space for strangers to communicate at the site of the then recently constructed US-Mexico border fence. The INSITE Journal is edited by Andrea Torreblanca.
Simultaneously, we are launching VIEWPOINTS, an online initiative featuring contributions by a diverse group of practitioners that will share perspectives on the INSITE Journal’s main themes (Performing Resilience and Social Beings) through short personal videos. Their contributions will be posted weekly on our social media and will then be added as a new section to each edition of the Journal. VIEWPOINTS had its origin in INSITE’s invitation to generous interlocutors who had agreed to convene in the San Diego/Tijuana region over the summer of 2020 to consider the shape and concept of the seventh version of INSITE. In light of recent events, those invitations to meet as a group were postponed. We hope, however, that this informal forum, while not a substitute for in-person dialog, will be valuable as the arts community reconsiders the role that culture can and should play going forward.
