Week 2 Thoughts On Aesthetics and Politics
🐦Reflections following the lecture and the exhibition
This week’s lecture on aesthetics and politics remind me of an exhibition I visited recently, Resistance, at Modern Two in Edinburgh. The exhibition focus on “How protest shaped Britain and photography shaped protest”. It brought together works by thousands of photographers and was curated by a well-known filmmaker, Steve McQueen. It focused on political and social struggles across different decades, including workers’ rights, racial quality, environmental protection, LGBTQ+ liberation, anti-war protests and so on.
(Resistance, installation view at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Photograph by Xiaobao Ye, 2025)
One of the most striking curatorial decisions was the exclusive use of black-and-white style photography, provid very strong and powerful visual experience. The exhibition combined with the classical setting of the National Gallery, created a solemn and powerful atmosphere that felt appropriate for the whole political theme content. A similar strategy shown in other engaged exhibitions. such as the exhibition about African soldiers at GoMA in Glasgow, it’s clearly that seriousness and restraint are often favoured when curating political exhibitions.
(John Akomfrah, Mimesis: African Soldier, installation view at Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow. Photograph by Xiaobao Ye, 2026)
However, in Resistance, the strong visual unity also made me question about the limitation in some cases. We can see all the photographs were presented in similar sizes and tones, no any single work was particularly emphasised. such setting did created a sense of equality, and also flattened the differences between specific historical moments and struggles. I began to wonder whether prioritising an unified aesthetic might reduce the urgency and violence of certain events. This experience made me reflect on how curatorial choices shape not only what political histories are shown, but how strongly they are felt by the audience.
🪐Collective Planning Meeting
This week, I also met up with the members of my collective during planning meeting, we introduced ourselves to one another, and decided to call ourselves the 404 Collective. Our goutp members include painters, graphic designers, music producers and ceramic artists, we exchanged ideas about exhibitions and curation.
Reference
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/resistance
https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/mimesis-african-soldier
