Dramaturgies of Withdrawal: On Gestures of Refusal in Search of More Nourishing Artistic and Institutional Practices

Many artists and art institutions seem utterly tired. Stretching their bodies beyond limits to navigate between unstable working conditions, funding cuts and constant competition, they are too tired to imagine they could not be. This exhaustion leads many artists, teachers, students and art workers to (temporarily) withdraw from their work: they are leaving their positions, studies, projects, dance companies, theatre groups. Often, their refusal leads to creating another solution: more fair, restorative and nourishing, that would have remained impossible otherwise - when one goes off the trail, a new one needs to be paved. 

Seen from this perspective, a withdrawal is not a defeat, but an affirmative, creative strategy to imagine and experiment with new, more restorative ways of creating and teaching. How can we learn from the experiences of those who decided they could not go on like this? How can artistic practices open conditions for a collective rest? 

This research proposal addresses the pressing issue of exhaustion, which seems to be overwhelming not only the arts field but society as a whole. We’re living in an extractivist era, struggling with populist, authoritarian turns in politics on one side and climate change and extinction on the other. The world as we know it is transforming, the old habits do not seem to work anymore, the new ones are not there yet. Stories of withdrawal offer conditions for practicing letting go in order to make space for the new to come. They are a promise that other, more restorative modes of living and working are possible.