Former West: Documents, constellations, prospects

FORMER WEST (2008–2016) is a long-term contemporary art research, education, publishing, exhibition and discursive project that aims at developing a critical understanding of the legacy of the radical resistance to power in 1989, in order to both imaginatively reevaluate the present and speculate about global futures. It employs the “retroperspective” method – allowing for imaginative thinking and acting through both global pasts and future prospects simultaneously. The work of art plays a critical role in this context and is understood as a “document” through which to re-read the recent course of history otherwise than the way in which we’ve gotten to know it, demonstrating thus the imaginative potential of artistic practice in shaping and transforming the world.