An International Conference at Södertörn University and Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus, Stockholm, June 13-14, 2024.

In the problem of the autonomy of art, not only the autonomy of art is at stake. In recent years, across different national contexts, policy measures and reforms have been launched that decimate the independence of cultural and educational institutions, while waving the false flag of ”freedom” – of art, of expression, of opinion, of academic research. Effectively countering this offensive presupposes a strong, critical understanding of the concept at its core. Here, the problem of autonomy and its forms regains full urgency. How should we understand the concept of the autonomy of art critically today? What would be the political implications of such an understanding?

Thursday, June 13

Södertörn University, MA331

10.00 Welcome

10.30-11.30 Sven Lütticken, ”Infrastructural Critique and the Problem of

Counterpublics”

11.45-12.45 Linnéa Lindsköld, “Cultural Policy as National Security

Policy: Implications for the Autonomy of Art, Artist, and Audience”

12.45-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.00 Peter Osborne, “Freedoms in Unfreedom”

15.15-17.00 Panel: Gustav Strandberg, Kim West, Josefine Wikström.

Gustav Strandberg, “Murdering the Imagination”

Kim West, “Autonomy at Scale”

Josefine Wikström, “Contemporary Art and Cultural Policy,

or Art and the State, 1990s to the Present”

Friday, June 14

Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus

14.00-15.00 Stefan Jonsson, “Figures of Autonomy? Notes on Collective

Agency and the Tweets, Drops and Masks of Freedom”

15.15-16.15 Jackqueline Frost, “Aimé Césaire between Political

Autonomy and Poetic Knowledge”

16.30-17.30 Nicholas Brown, “Handle with Care: Affect, Sociology, Index,

and Other Critical Evasions”

17.45-18.45 Andrea Fraser, “Autonomy and its Contradictions Revisited”

18.45-19.00 Closing Remarks