Olu Jenzen

In 2020 we published the book The Aesthetics of Global Protest (AUP) to expand on the research undertaken as part of the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) funded project The Aesthetics of Protest (2016-2018) which, focusing on The 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, investigated the aesthetic elements of protest, both online and in public spaces. This research demonstrated the centrality of aesthetics to the field of digital activism, and explored themes such as the role of social media imaginaries in contemporary protest discourse; the power of visualising the everyday; the use of humour as community-building and dissidence against authoritarianism; the significance of emotional echo-chamber involved in protests; and new media creativity such as the genre of the protest music video. The project included a number of artist collaborations, not least the commissioned exhibition in Istanbul 2017, curated by Isil Egrikavuk with the Halka Art Project. As a Co-I on this project I led on the ‘Methodology’ and ‘Social Media Activism’ work packages and in 2021 I produced an impact case study, demonstrating how cultural forms linked to the ‘Gezi (protest) spirit’, identified in the research, eg, the communal, pluralist ethos of the social movement, resonated beyond the effervescent uprising of protest, and gained a foothold in the national art festival scene not previously held.

The Aesthetics of Global Protest is available as a free e-book. The project team has also published a number of articles:

Korkut, U., McGarry, A., Erhart, I., Eslen-Ziya, H., & Jenzen, O. (2022). Looking for truth in absurdity: Humour as community-building and dissidence against authoritarianism. International Political Science Review, 43(5): 629–647. Open Access DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512120971151

Jenzen, O., Erhart, I., Eslen-Ziya, H., Korkut, U. & McGarry, A. (2020). The figure of social media in contemporary protest. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27(2): 414-437. Open Access DOI: 10.1177/1354856520933747

Jenzen, O., Erhart, I., Eslen-Ziya, H., Güçdemir, D., Korkut, U., McGarry, A. (2020). Music Videos as Protest Communication: The Gezi Park Protest on YouTube, in McGarry, A. et al. (eds) The Aesthetics of Protest: Global Visual Culture and Communication, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 211-231. Open Access.

Eslen-Ziya, H., McGarry, A., Jenzen, O., Erhart, I. & Korkut, U. (2019). From anger to solidarity: The emotional echo-chamber of Gezi park protests. Emotion, Space and Society 33(100632): 1-9. Open Access DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2019.100632

McGarry, A., Jenzen, O., Eslen-Ziya, H., Erhart, I. & Korkut, U. (2019). Beyond the iconic protest images: The performance of ‘everyday life’ on social media during Gezi Park. Social Movement Studies 18(3): 284-304. DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2018.1561259