Things for Politics’ Sake

Many believe that art has the power to transform society and politics. Things for Politics’ Sake is a platform for engaging with the critical potentials of aesthetic objects within this transformation. This platform accompanies the European Research Council-funded project Things for Politics’ Sake: Aesthetic Objects and Social Change (THINGSTIGATE, ERC, 101041284), which runs from 2023 to 2028. Here, the research team and affiliates maintain a public a repository of field notes, chronicling the processes, reflections, and ongoing discussions as part of the project.

To mark the beginning of the project, THINGSTIGATE held a participatory exhibition in April 2023 as part of the International Science Festival in Gothenburg. Over several days in Nordstan—one of the most visited shopping malls in the Nordic region—we organised THINGSTIGATE soft launch: Aesthetic Objects and the Public, a series of participatory workshops, public talks, and a roundtable discussion with international guests. We staged the public workshops Assembling Commons (Natalie Novik, 2023), Protest Banner Lending Library (Aram Han Sifuentes, 2016—),and—together with the CGM Make Your Own Passport Network—Make Your Own Passport (Tintin Wulia, 2014—). These workshop’s performers also gave public talks in Nordstan’s public stage, and a roundtable between migration scholar Andrea Spehar, artist-scholar Onkar Kular, artist/geographer Kaya Barry, global studies scholar Bart Klem, and artist-researcher Tintin Wulia took place in Gothenburg’s Maritime Museum. These events engaged a diverse public in conversations about aesthetic objects and their agency in sociopolitical issues.

After several recces and fieldworks through the workshop-performance Make Your Own Passport (Wulia, 2014—) in 2024, the THINGSTIGATE team at the time (Postdoctoral Researcher Kelly Ka-Lai Chan, MA Intern Maxine Chionh, and PI Tintin Wulia) contributes the participatory project Butsu-butsu Ko-kan to the exhibition Meeting Point: Encounter, Get to Know, Exchange at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (Hiroshima MoCA), from 21 September to 4 November 2024. This project was also exhibited as part of the HDK-Valand Research Days 2025 in Gothenburg.

In December 2024, Hiroshima MoCA published a monograph to accompany the exhibition Tintin Wulia: Things-in-Common (24 September 2024 – 5 January 2025), centred on a concept developed through THINGSTIGATE. The monograph, co-edited by Hiroshima MoCA curator Naoko Sumi and THINGSTIGATE PI Tintin Wulia, brings together texts from contributors across disciplines, each offering a distinct perspective on the idea of things-in-common. These include essays by the exhibition’s curator Naoko Sumi, cultural scholar Ariel Heryanto, and anthropologist Karen Strassler, as well as conversations between Wulia and ecologist Deborah M. Gordon, and journalist Vincent Bevins. Alongside these texts, Wulia’s essay discusses the theorisation of things-in-common through her research practice, and the monograph documents twenty-five works from across the past twenty-five years of Wulia’s exhibitionary career. These texts are republished here as part of the project’s commitment to open access and to fostering an ongoing dialogue about aesthetic objects and sociopolitical change.

The year 2025 marks the beginning of the THINGSTIGATE TALK series. We invite scholars and practitioners approaching aesthetic objects and sociopolitical change from diverse perspectives. On 27 February 2025, curator and researcher Alia Swastika presents her curatorial work for the Sharjah Biennale 2025: To Carryand a collaborative research project, Concrete Thread Repertoires, on material resistance movements led by indigenous mothers across Indonesia. On 21 March 2025, artist and writer Shubigi Rao presents her ongoing project Pulp, in conjuction with the year-long exhibition Pulp I-IV at Bildmuseet (14 March 2025 to 11 January 2026). On 6 May 2025, art historian and curator Wulan Dirgantoro presents her research on post-conflict art in Timor-Leste, part of a broader Australian Research Council-funded project associated with the exhibition Art of Peace: Art After War in the Art Gallery of Western Australia (1 February – 29 June 2025). The series will continue in the coming years, with documentation made available here in this platform.

As THINGSTIGATE continues to unfold, this Things for Politics’ Sake platform remains an active site for thinking with aesthetic objects in relation to sociopolitical change. Rather than offering fixed conclusions, it holds space for situated observations, speculative gestures, and the contingencies of collaborative research. We welcome readers, contributors, and interlocutors to stay with us in this evolving inquiry.