Prefigurative PoliticsBack

Prefigurative Politics

This term was coined by political scientist Carl Boggs in the 1970s to describe the moments when - within a political, social or artistic movement - new forms of human relationships, culture and experience are achieved: the great goal of social life. In other words, they are moments within a project in which utopia becomes real and palpable even if only temporarily. In BOWING - even though we don't refer to this practice by the term ‘Prefigurative Politics’ - we sometimes come up with new models, alternatives to the present reality, in which we envision and feel how, eventually, the communities of Odemira could co-exist. Instead of taking action in direct opposition to existing models, through protests and claims, we followed another path of proposing and incorporating new forms, living and experiencing how society could become. Protests and demands are necessary and essential for democracy but this project took the path of building a possible future while being aware and attentive to present problems. We know that the atmosphere created within the sessions was not the current reality but sometimes, we behaved as if the issues of racism, integration and housing were no longer relevant. We effortlessly represented a reality in which these problems simply didn't exist, which enabled us to make it present for a certain time (the time of the rehearsal, the session, the meeting) and, in this way, prefigure the world we want to live in, exercising the muscles of hope and human evolution.