Symposium - The Populist Front

A one-day symposium titled The Populist Front. On the Role of Myth, Storytelling and Imaginary in Politics, marking the publication of Open 20.Cahier on Art and Public Domain. The symposium reflects on the rise of political populism and investigates its use of imagery, storytelling and myth. 

Date: 18 March 2011, 10am6pm

Location: De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam

Entrance: 15 Euro (incl. lunch and drinks during the break) / Students: 10 Euro

A famous slogan of the May 1968 revolt states: 'All power to the imagination!' Above all, the appeal to the imagination implied a form of liberation, envisioning another society, and freedom from existing, restrictive role patterns. Those groups that appeal to the imagination nowadays the Italian Lega Nord, the American Tea Party movement, the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, to name but a few have altogether different intentions. The imagination is now put to work to sharpen and fix identities, to stir the desire for an imaginary past, and to cultivate myths. 

Illustration: Dan Perjovschi

A widespread conception of political populism holds that it simply means giving a voice to the people, thereby reducing populism to a neutral transmission device to convey popular desires and needs. This symposium aims instead to look at populism as an active process involving the imaginary fabrication of popular identities. In populist politics a front is created that separates 'real' people (the common man, the true American, etc.) from their enemies (e.g., the liberal elite or the threat presented by Muslim immigrants). At the same time, cultural imagery is either invented or appropriated to express such a limited notion of the people. Hence the use of the Boston Tea Party by the radical right of the Republican Party, the resurrection of medieval heraldry by Lega Nord, and the theatrical impersonation of the Dutch maritime hero Michiel de Ruyter by Geert Wilders. 

That political ideology works through imagery and storytelling is not a new insight, of course. However, at the moment these aesthetic aspects are frequently ignored despite the essential role they seem to play. This symposium includes a varied group of theoreticians, image-makers and storytellers who will attempt to create an analysis of the populist imaginary. 

With contributions by Rudi Laermans and Koen Abts, Oliver Marchart, Sara R. Farris, John Kraniauskas, Sven Ltticken, Aukje van Rooden, Chto Delat, Steve Lambert, Jorinde Seijdel and Merijn Oudenampsen.