Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the Occupy movements around the globe, artists have increasingly
turned to new models of artistic production and community engagement, expanding their work beyond the
walls of theaters and museums and into situated social and ecological practices. Katia Arfara’s new book,
Curating the Commons. Socially Engaged Public Art, offers an in-depth study on performance-centered
artworks she curated in unexpected urban spaces in Greece during the austerity years, complicating notions
of memory, agency, mobility, and belonging. This roundtable explores how the book contributes to the
larger effort to craft human and other-than-human narratives and repair shattered urbanities in response to
the multifaceted crises of our time.
Speakers
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Katia Arfara, Author, "Curating the Commons. Socially Engaged Public Art" (University of Michigan Press, 2025); Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, NYUAD
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Peter Eckersall, Sidney E. Cohn Professor in Theatre, PhD Program in Theatre and Performance, The Graduate Center CUNY
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Edward Ziter, Professor of Theatre Studies, Department of Undergraduate Drama Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
