On Institutions

On Institutions explores the relation between performance and institutions building on the premise that institutional structures are formed through repeated sets of practices, patterns and relations. Through a performance studies lens that approaches the figure of the institution as verb, this issue considers how institutions are performance and in turn how performance practices may enforce, destabilize and initiate new modes of organisation. Although often read as abstractions of seemingly objective, entrenched and systematic structures, institutions, whether formal or informal, are always social processes. Thus, if institutional constructions and resources are established through repeated modes of action and arrangements, how might certain performance practices constitute radical acts, becomings and socialities, and by extension, potential performances of instituting otherwise? This edition of Performance Research brings to the fore theoretical discourses and artistic production that explicitly negotiate with institutions through experimental praxes from within, through and beyond them.
Contributions by Bojana Kunst, Alan Read, Forster & Heighes, Kenneth Pietrobono, Ana Vujanović, Simon Bayly, Goran Sergej Pristaš, BADCo., Hillary Miller, Kélina Gotman, Jonas Tinius, Liberate Tate, Ashon Crawley, Sarah Wilbur, Paul Clarke, Tania El Khoury, Deborah Pearson, P.A. Skantze, Eirene Efstathiou, Stefano Harney, Fred Moten