Creating Art to Activate Critical Thinking

Abstract

A free path through the diversity of publications by Silviano Santiago surprises the reader, as it shows how the power of literary fabulation expands the inventive content of theoretical-critical-political activity. Starting from a circumstantial text – the short story “Família”, published on Moreira Salles Institute blog for the occasion of Chichico Alkmim’s photography exhibition opening –, this article visits writings distinct genres, styles and tones in the investigation of outstanding moments where writing, by experimenting with more thought-provoking solutions, illuminates problems of conceptual formulation and critical judgment. Sometimes it makes clear the permanence of the denouncing force of appropriations and assemblages, at other times it exercises the narration from a child’s point of view to alienate entrenched social behaviors; in a poetic extract, it re-signifies mass media characters; in narration, the (auto) biographical tactic is used to rewrite polemic aspects of recent history; lastly, the novelistic plots transform the mimetic status of the genre into allegory of theoretical aspects of art.