INTERSTITIAL 4
THE AGE OF PROTEST
21.06.2024 - 27.07.2024
PROJECT: ISAAC TORRES

Objects of protest have become, over the years, the markers that define a collective recall of significant moments in history. They are instant references to a united cause, everyday objects turned into self-referential images, symbolic gestures that identify modern protests. These objects take on the colors to speak for groups that collectively activate architectural and urban spaces by sharing experiences of fight to defend and reclaim their rights, regardless of the national, ethnic, religious and gender identification of their participants, or of the society that produces them.

The political use of traditional media such as newspapers, television and radio, corporate as well as institutional, continue to reproduce the hegemonic thinking of their ideological and cultural control systems, amidst a sea of information collectively produced and uploaded to the Internet —which ideally should operate as an open space for dissemination—. Paradoxically, their free interpretation and use of information from different sources —false, real or distorted— are the same symbols that emerge from modern media democracy cutting through the noise to populate the streets, the images and our contemporary imaginaries. 

"The Age of Protest" addresses the phenomenon through the rise of 20th century nationalisms, analyzing the use of color in wearable objects by mainly military groups to build a common identity. The instrumental use of color of the time becomes relevant when the old codes are transferred to new objects and meanings of protest in the 21st century. These colors, devoid of military history, serve now as vehicles to identify other ideological and social movements such as the defense of human rights, control over borders, invasions, sanitary security, family structures and reproductive arguments, among others. 

Through the language of contemporary protest and its powerful images, the exhibition reviews recent transformations in the political environment of global society over the last two decades, and its visual manifestations on territories and populations through the tactical use of color, and its abstract associations to visualize and defend their causes.