Argentinian collective Etcétera presents NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM their project for the Boris Lurie Fellowship through a performance lecture. The lecture introduces the main areas of their research: the neo-extractivist model, the concepts of Buen Vivir and Ecocide and includes an errorist drift around some of the most recent failed protocols. Scholar Jennifer Ponce de León contextualizes their performance, giving a historical account of the Argentinian collective’s history from its founding in 1997 to the last errorist actions of the 21st century.

This event is part of the Vera List Center Forum 2020, highlighting the center’s fellowship program and featuring presentations by the five 2020-2022 Vera List Center Fellows: Carolina Caycedo (Colombia/U.S.), Etcétera (Argentina), Maria Hupfield (Canada), Adelita Husni Bey (Italy/U.S.), and Rasheedah Phillips (Philadelphia).

Formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists, poets, and performers. Since 2007 it has been led by co-founders Soledad Garín Guzmán (Chile) and Federico Zukerfeld (Argentina). In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist movement, an international organization that proclaims error as a philosophy of life. In addition to participating in exhibitions in museums and biennials such as the biennials of Jakarta (2015), São Paulo (2014), Athens (2013), Istanbul (2009), and Taipei (2008), they often work with street-art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial. In 2015, they received the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands. Their work has been recognized for its denouncement of human rights and environmental abuses through theatrical and poetic actions and statements often exercised at personal risk.

Jennifer Ponce de León is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research focuses on cultural production and antisystemic movements in the Americas in the 20th and 21st centuries. She is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania where she is also faculty in Latin American and Latinx Studies. She is Associate Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and an independent curator. Her first book Another Aesthetics is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War is forthcoming from Duke University Press. She is currently working on a book on internationalist political imaginaries in 21st century literature, film, and visual art by Latinx and Latin American artists, and co-authoring with Gabriel Rockhill Revolutionizing Aesthetics: Composing a World beyond Art for Columbia University Press’s series New Directions in Critical Theory. Her essays have appeared in American Quarterly, Philosophy Today, ASAP/Journal, Social Text, e-misférica, GLQ, and multiple edited collections

The Vera List Center Forum 2020 launches the center’s 2020-2022 focus theme, As for Protocols. Curated by Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira, it is organized with the support of Adrienne Umeh, Heran Abate, Joshua van Biema, and Maryna Arabei.

The Vera List Center Forum 2020 is made possible by major support from Jane Lombard and the Kettering Fund, as well as the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The New School as well as members of the Vera List Center’s board and other individuals.

The Boris Lurie Fellowship is the first artist-named fellowship at the Vera List Center. Established with a grant from the Boris Lurie Art Foundation and the Schaina and Josephina Lurje Memorial Foundation, it is named after Boris Lurie (1924–2008), Holocaust survivor and founder of the NO!art movement. In tribute to Lurie’s life and The New School’s historic role as university-in-exile during World War Two, it is awarded to an artist living outside the U.S., with special consideration given to those who have faced political hardship. For more information about this artist and the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, please visit its website at https://borislurieart.org/