‘The aesthetics of austerity’

UK-based art-activist Liz Crow discusses the challenges of making socially engaged, political art and performance in a climate of austerity. She reflects on the euphoric moment of the 2012 Paralympics Games, and the contradictory experiences that resulted for people with disabilities who were simultaneously lauded as ‘superhumans’ and castigated as ‘scroungers’. Crow talks about the dialogic works she created to counter these unattainable – and implicitly discriminatory – categories including two durational works, Bedding Out (2012–2013) and Figures (2015). Figures, a mass sculptural durational performance, testifies to the far-reaching effects of austerity measures and also holds the potential of serving as an alternative ‘legacy’ archive of the London Summer Games. A foldout of selected images and text from the Figures project is printed in Part 4: ‘Suspending Freedom, Sustaining Spectacle’ of this special issue.