The Aesthetics of Resistance

The Aesthetics of Resistance follows the rite of passage of a young German during the Second World War. A member of the anti-fascist resistance, he travels from Berlin to Spain and onto Stockholm, and through his encounters with all sorts of historic figures, including Bertolt Brecht, asks about possible communist unity. Coming from a working-class background, he also gains an education – and this is the essence and power of Peter Weiss’ novel –through his analysis of works of art to develop with his friends a genealogy of resistance-based art, free from all ideological injunction. With a company of seventeen actors putting forth a dishevelled, Dantesque performance, Sylvain Creuzevault questions European history from a communist point of view and in these uncertain times, builds an ark against the flood.