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[15]Preface

The ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) Standing Group on Politics and the Arts was founded in 1996 by Maureen Whitebrook, who called the group for the first initial workshop in Bordeaux. Already at that time, the idea was to analyse art as a form of political discourse. Over the years, the activities of the Standing Group revolved around such issues as terror and art, violence and non-violence, art and reconciliation, and aesthetic representations of and interventions in international conflicts. Furthermore, the Standing Group explored the politicization of film, literature and photography; the poetic form; narrative practices; and, most recently, the art of peace.

Art as political witness was included in the Group’s research agenda for the first time on the occasion of the 2013 ECPR General Conference in Bordeaux. In Glasgow, one year later, the Group intensified its engagement with the role and function of art as political witness in a section entirely dedicated to this subject. We invited panels and papers expanding the range of political science by problematizing the concept of art in connection with political witnessing; elaborating the political-ness of artistic witnessing; and exploring the concept of artistic witnessing as political activity. We were interested in the temporality of witnessing including reflection of the past and anticipation of the future in artistic and aesthetic engagements with politics and the political.

We would like to thank all friends and colleagues – those who are contributing to the Group’s overall activities, and especially those who participated in the intense discussions on art as political witness in Bordeaux, Glasgow and elsewhere. Special thanks are due to the contributors to this volume and the artists who generously granted permission to reproduce their work in this book. Indeed, the Standing Group has always been interested in dialogue between scholars and artists and we are extremely happy to have Louie Palu among the contributors to this volume. We are also grateful to the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tampere and the School’s dean, Risto Kunelius, for subsidizing the language-editing stage of this project. Finally, many thanks are due to Barbara Budrich Publishers, especially to our editor Sarah Rögl, and also to Jakob Horstmann and Ulrike Schmitz for their initial interest in this project.

Kia Lindroos, Jyväskylä

Frank Möller, Tampere