AA Talk #19 - Radical hope
Who would speak of enlightenment today? Who would speak of universalism? And who would dare speak of art in the same breath? All those who seek a future, all those who do not want to see our emancipatory aspirations crushed and discarded by a clash of empires. In this AA talk, Justin O’Connor, Patrycja Kaszynska and Sebastian Olma are going to argue that we can build our Radical Hope on these terms precisely because they have shaped our understanding of modernity. Radical Hope means to reject the idea that the end of the world is unavoidable, that we must make do in the ruins of the future. Instead, it urges us to salvage from the ruins of the past that which will help us to build a planetary future in-common.
Doors open:19:30 hrs
Talk: 20:00 - 22:00 hrs
Drinks: 22:00-23:00 hrs
Justin O’Connor is Professor of Cultural Economy at Adelaide University, Visiting Professor at the School of Cultural Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Hallsworth Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester. Between 2012-18 he was a member of the UNESCO ‘Expert Facility’, supporting the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity. Justin recently co-authored Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China (2020, Intellect), Reset: Een Nieuw Begin voor Kunst en Cultuur (2023, Starfish Books); and Culture is Not an Industry (2024, Manchester UP).
Patrycja Kaszynska is Senior Research Fellow at University of the Arts London and Research Associate at Culture, King’s College London. She is also Research Affiliate at Northeastern University London, where she was Head of the Art History Faculty before joining UAL. Patrycja has shaped the UK’s national discussion on how the value of arts, culture and heritage is articulated and measured in the context of decision making. Her interests are at the cross section of critical theory, pragmatic philosophy, cultural studies and design with the key focus on the theory of value and valuation studies.
Sebastian Olma holds the research chair for Cultural and Creative Industries at the Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (Caradt) at Avans University of Applied Sciences. He is the founding editor of the web journal Making and Breaking. Alongside his academic work, he has advised policymakers throughout Europe on the facts and fictions of the creative economy. His publications include Art and Autonomy: Past, Present, Future (2018, V2_ Publishing), In Defence of Serendipity (2016, Repeater Press), and, most recently, An-Aesthetic Autonomy: Rebuilding the Art World After Its Neoliberal Degradation (2025, INC longform).
