Mike Alewitz & co. An Injury to One Is an Injury to All, Los Angeles, 1991.

The theme of issue 4 of G.A.P. is Art with/for Excluded Groups and it is comprised of a series of articles, interviews and theoretical texts which analyze the ways in which excluded/marginal communities, groups and individuals take part and are (re)presented in various artistic forms in the public sphere. Hence, we propose identifying and debating forms of participatory and documentary art – in Romania, as well as in the Republic of Moldova, Hungary, the US, Kenya, Uganda – which address issues confronting ignored social groups. Such socio-political acts trigger a process of translation from “the center” towards “the margins”, from art for a middle-class, “refined”, “tasteful” audience (usually treated as mere passive consumers) towards that “invisible” audience which is usually denied access to, and involvement in, the artistic process.

We attempt to track the changes which take place within certain artistic projects of observation and analysis of everyday life which are based on several working directions:

–          actors’ experiences with an audience which is usually denied access to the theater;

–          the perspective of people in vulnerable situations who see their own life stories enacted through artistic means;

–          forms of empowering marginal groups through artistic acts

Within the framework of these directions and fueled by the desire to question the dynamics between the artists and the vulnerable social groups they work with, the themes of the articles and interviews in this issue of G.A.P. attempt to highlight the political aspects of the impact of several global issues at a local level: documenting and transmitting, through artistic means, the life stories and perspectives of people in economically and ideologically marginalized communities; creating a discussion platform for the understanding of the common ground on which both the struggle for gender equality and the class struggle take place; problematizing the limits of active art in the context of the withdrawal of public institutions from rural areas; debating the role of art in the discussion on domestic violence; the lack of exposure for community theater and the issues of its expansion into other social groups as a form of education.

The theme of issue 5 of G.A.P. will be Art and Gentrification.