{"id":4313,"date":"2021-05-07T09:50:16","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T09:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/0318da2.netsolhost.com\/pwarchive\/?p=4313"},"modified":"2021-05-12T07:05:29","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T07:05:29","slug":"the-anne-frank-youth-network-programme-with-st-kabirs-chandigarh-and-mhs-kolkata-digital-class-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/0318da2.netsolhost.com\/pwarchive\/?p=4313","title":{"rendered":"The Anne Frank Youth Network Programme (India): Digital Session 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fascism and Art. In lieu of an \u2018icebreaking activity\u2019 in this session, we offered the students the above three words to respond to. This brought in a welcome variety of responses, leading to a free flowing discussion: from art as impossible to flourish in a fascist regime to art as resistance to fascism, the limitations of art in fighting fascism to censorship. This set the stage quite organically for the first segment of ourplan for the session: \u2018Degenerate Art\u2019 as per Nazi ideology.<\/p>\n

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels at the “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich in 1938. Sourced via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

ccc<\/span>A screening of a section of this video clip from Facing History <\/a>was followed by a moderated discussion. Some of the areas we discussed were: Why were books burnt; on what basis were the qualities of German and un-German assigned to the visual arts and music; Was this kind of\u00a0totalizing\u00a0bifurcation on the basis of one identity familiar to the students\u2014had they seen it elsewhere; why did the Nazi regime take such efforts to demarcate between \u2018German\u2019 and \u2018degenerate\u2019 art 1937 onwards when they had already been in power for four years by then? The conversations that sprouted took an interesting turn when we invited students who practised any art to consider how they may react to their art being received entirely, whether accepted or rejected, through the lens of ONE aspect of their identity alone.<\/p>\n\n\t\t