Art Activism in Times of Extractivist Offensive: The Alliances of Art and Politics in the Play La rebelión de las hojas (Mendoza-Argentina, 2020).

Abstract

This work addresses the alliances of art and politics weaved around the conflict dynamics produced by large-scale mining projects in Mendoza, Argentina. Th e analysis centers on a particular experience: the staging of the play La rebelión de las hojas, produced during one of the major mobilization cycles in defense of water as a common good, in December 2019. Based on data collected through participant observation and in-depth interviews, the objective of the article is to reconstruct some key issues of this artistic-political project, focusing on its production dynamics and the cultural critique it triggers. Activist art has been a lively part of the defense of water as a common good in Mendoza from the beginning, interweaving art and politics to contribute a critical narrative of power relations and social antagonisms, as well as revealing alternatives. In fact, those artistic practices comprise one of the many windows through which one may observe the disputes for hegemony and the transformations of the current world.