Jaleh Mansoor: The Black / Red Square Repeated: Echo, Perseveration or Renewal? Notes on the Reiteration of a Political Trope

The last decade has witnessed the recurrence of collective revolutionary will, relying on symbolic forms and icons now a century old, such as the Red Square in the Quebec student protests of 2012/13 or the Black Square in the protests following the death of Trayvon Martin. Why do newly politicized movements gain coherence and urgency through this reference? How do these bygone revolutionary histories come to be contained and summoned symbolically long after their historical passage? This talk will explore the parapolitical operations of a number of tropes generated by the revolutionary movements of the historical avant-garde, notably the monochrome. In order to trace the trajectory of form, Mansoor will explore the suppression and dismissal of these symbols during the Cold War.

Part of the conference Freedom in the Bush of Ghosts