ABSTRACT
The introduction to this book begins by discussing the recent global wave of art activism and creative protest that emerged with the Arab Spring. This is followed by an overview of past and current theories of, and approaches to, art activism, which leads to the claim that there is need for an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that can achieve a deeper understanding of the internal processes of art activism by borrowing from the fields of sociology and anthropology as well as art theory and performance studies. Key theories from the arts and social sciences are discussed, followed by a brief historical perspective on the UK context and a description of the book’s contents.
