The “Clay Festival” as a Citizen Activist Practice in Huila Department

Abstract

The following text, titled “The ‘Clay Festival’ as a citizen activism practice in the department of Huila” is part of an ongoing research project that seeks to establish the relationships between visual arts and political violence. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the experiences of some communities, to energize visual practices aligned with citizen artistic activism. The research problem aims to explore the ways in which these activist practices are made visible in the southern region of our country. This investigation into contemporary Colombian art is grounded in social studies, making it an interdisciplinary project. The applied methodology focuses on document analysis, conducting interviews, and the review of photographs. The paper concludes that citizen activism practices represent alternative ways of implementing social activism or movements aimed at challenging established cultural norms. These practices actively engage marginalized or invisible individuals and groups, while focusing on a series of ethnographic planning, management, and actions in which the proposed projects and formative/creative activities take place with, for, and within community groups. In sum, it can be said that the cited citizen activism practices successfully achieved community organization and the creation of art with collectives and in territories beyond the departmental and national frameworks of artistic visibility.