Disobedience Archive at Venice Biennale: A Circular Chronotope of Dissent

The Disobedience Archive, curated by Marco Scotini since 2004, appears at the 60th Venice Biennale as a circular zoetrope-like installation in the Corderie dell'Arsenale. It collects video documentation of social disobedience, activism, and political struggles from around the world, featuring artists and collectives such as Black Audio Film Collective, Hito Steyerl, Ursula Biemann, Khaled Jarrar, and many others. The archive adds two new sections: 'Diaspora Activism' and 'Gender Disobedience.' It critiques the Biennale's curatorial framework, which it sees as a neoliberal enclosure that normalizes relations with apartheid and censors solidarity with Palestinians. Performances by María Galindo (Mujeres Creando) and Daniela Ortiz directly protest the Israeli pavilion and call for boycott. The archive spans decades of movements from ACT UP to contemporary queer and anti-colonial struggles, emphasizing that decolonization and capitalism are intertwined. Scotini's project opposes the essentialist myth of authenticity and insists on a collective, insurrectionary disobedience that breaks binary cages.