Some artists cannot afford to believe that aesthetics are not inextricably tied to politics. In my final post of the series, I continue summarizing the significance of artists who, in giving expression to their visions of truth and meaning, ultimately resist normative discourses by refracting status quo representations of the world.
II. Refraction as Resistance: A Poetics of Non-linear
Deviating, shifting, indirect, crooked paths, “constant state of motion, dispersion, and permeability.”
I began with an accumulation, a sense of something, and this question: What is the significance of ‘refractive poetics’ for artists who identify with the margins or address alternative modes of seeing?
In considering the implications of refractive poetics for artists in the margins who address issues of social identity, this week I explore the work of Christine Sun Kim, an artist who was born deaf and whose primary investigation is sound. For Kim, what is most palpably at stake is access to a part of the world she cannot experience the way most others do. “How can I learn the idea of sound and silence from [others’] perspective?” she asks.
![[image: collage capone, cha, philip, walker, kim, lyle]](https://jacket2.org/sites/jacket2.org/files/imagecache/wide_main_column/collage.jpg "Capone, Cha, Philip, Walker, Kim, Lyle")
![[image: Christine Sun Kim]](https://jacket2.org/sites/jacket2.org/files/imagecache/wide_main_column/kimheader_0.jpg)
Refraction as resistance (ii)
Some artists cannot afford to believe that aesthetics are not inextricably tied to politics. In my final post of the series, I continue summarizing the significance of artists who, in giving expression to their visions of truth and meaning, ultimately resist normative discourses by refracting status quo representations of the world.
II. Refraction as Resistance: A Poetics of Non-linear
Deviating, shifting, indirect, crooked paths, “constant state of motion, dispersion, and permeability.”