Between Aesthetics and Politics in Climate Activism: A Material-Discursive Analysis of the A22 Network

Abstract

In the age of the Anthropocene, the actions of the A22 network – including Just Stop Oil and Ultima Generazione – emerge as liminal practices in which aesthetics, political dissent, and media spectacle intersect, challenging conventional boundaries between art and activism. This study analyzes these interventions through a material-discursive lens inspired by Karen Barad’s agential realism, highlighting how symbolic elements and economic infrastructures co-constitute the political significance of activist practices. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Gregory Sholette, Boris Groys, and Jacques Rancière, the article addresses the structural tension between the transformative function and the spectacular neutralization of activist art, exploring the concepts of “bare art” and defunctionalizing aestheticization. Through emblematic case studies, it shows how such actions perform a re-semantization of place, turning contested sites into palimpsests of the climate crisis. The article further investigates the political ambivalences of transnational funding, interrogating the ideological and geopolitical implications of climate protest. In doing so, it reveals both the contradictions and the generative potential of aesthetic-political activation, which—despite the risk of co-optation—opens space for new imaginaries of radical dissent.