Enwezor’s International Biennial of Contemporary Art Seville dwelled on dark post-9/11 themes of war, terrorism, migration, and the extractivist nature of neoliberal capitalism. As I write, two unjust conflicts rage in Ukraine and Palestine; the second BIASC showed that the effects of such wars on art and exhibition-making can be deep and long-lasting, resurfacing years later. The exhibition participated in the wave of perennialization that took hold in the early twenty-first century, but also tempered the enthusiasm for the new neoliberal world order that was solidifying around the globe.

To counter the cultural and economic neoliberal shift towards precaritization, Amateur Riot has worked for almost two decades to reestablish local agency and to foster forms of interdependence for collective social reproduction, creating what I call, following the writings of political theorist James C. Scott, a “para-zomia”—a self-organized community embedded within an urban area. Though Amateur Riot includes artists and cultural workers, the collective does not consider itself a producer of artworks, signaling a move on its part past what is usually considered art.