Deal with it

Viewing images both as vehicles for various forms of real or symbolic violence and as avenues for individual or collective healing, Deal with it – Aesthetics of Repair explores the healing aspect inherent in certain visual art practices, which serve as tools of resistance. 

Erasure, overlay, repetition, cropping, glitch, collection, imprint, collage, or even reconstruction—the various actions artists perform on images function as attempts at conjuration and reappropriation. 

Whether physical or digital, the images can be personal, found, archival, or amateur images circulating online. These distinct gestures then function as micro-actions of individual resistance not only to specific events but also to a global media overload. By also helping to bring images or alternative narratives back into the spotlight, they contribute to redressing a form of cultural oblivion and erasure, with the aim of changing dominant narratives and representations.

As Legacy Russell points out in his book Glitch Feminism , « "Remixing (...) is a survival strategy."  Through close dialogue with a select group of artists who both conceptualize and heal through images, this research project focuses on studying these various processes of resistance through images, in which the image acts as a pharmakon—both a remedy and a poison.