Riots and Power: A Radical Examination through Art and Exhibitions

February 18, 2022

Riots are where the dispossessed come together to tear everything apart. Berlin-based curator Natasha Ginwala’s recent exhibition, Riots: Slow Cancellation of the Future, chronicles an international history of uprisings, which is elaborated in her co-edited book Nights of the Dispossessed: Riots Unbound. A contributor to both the exhibition and the book, artist Natascha Sadr Haghighian has referenced a transit camp for asylum seekers in the Venice Biennale’s German Pavilion and traced the history and application of police militarization and racial profiling tactics. The two speak about racial violence and the deepening crises of capitalism in an “age of riots.”