The Arts as a Form of Resistance in Pandemic Times

ABSTRACT

In this article we show how the arts have served as a form of resistance facing the impacts of the pandemic and confinement. Since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has reified previously existing social injustices. Several collectives have organized forms of resistance to oppose inequalities and forms of oppression. As a concrete example, the network of the Filipino community in Barcelona, Catalonia/ Spain, is offered. This community has been especially affected by Covid-19 because of their predominant employment in service sectors, often in a condition of exploitation that reflect the legacies of colonialism. Through the method of ethnography and within the framework of Gramscian anthropology and a decolonizing approach, this paper analyzes both the impact of Covid-19 on this community and their forms of resistance. Special emphasis is placed on the adolescents of the community and how they have made use of the arts to resist the impacts of the pandemic. To achieve this goal, the concept of critical art is used, as well as various principles of art therapy.