Theoretical foundations for a performative art and visual culture education

Language is central to the renewal of humanism. The term ‘queer’, for example, obtained a different usage from its pejorative meaning in the search for restoration of a community. What are the conditions for language, in its many forms, to be redefined in an activist way? Judith Butler shows that the disruptive repetition of injurious language can lead to its redefinition. She offers a theory of the performativity of language in which some discourses can define actions as much as activism can redefine language. Visual culture and design, by using language, is an essential tool in that transformation, revealing a performative pedagogical power. Such power, infused with Paulo Freire’s vision of language as the only means to develop people’s voice, creates a new performative visual culture education that can contribute to the achievement of freedom through public pedagogy.