Theory, Positionality, and the Public Space: Interview by Anna Kipke and Simon Teune

Abstract

When we read your chapters, we saw them as corresponding with regard to three issues: 1) the precarious relations of theory and practice, 2) your positionality and roles as curators, activists, and authors, and 3) the central role of the public space in your work. Both of your contributions challenge dominant “Western” theoretical and epistemic assumptions. Alia, your contribution underlines the power of theoretical models to gain distance from the practice/empiricism. You see a misfit and/or gap between concepts developed in Eurocentric art history and the experience you had as a curator in Jerusalem. Our first question to you is: How do theoretical models help or hamper our understanding of power imbalances?