Independent units with broad aesthetic mandates will carry out operations in urban space, bringing documentation and artefacts back to the growing exhibition in the gallery space.

The 1st (Sør/Østland), the 2nd (San Diego), the 3rd (Berlin), the 4th (Bordeaux) and The Council Flats of Mass Destruction (Brighton) will be represented.

The gallery space will be converted into a temporary operational HQ and workshop with access for enlisted members of the militia. The exhibition will consist of both individual and collaborative works, old and new.

Date of events / operations during the expanding exhibition will be regularly announced on our website and in social media. At the end of operations there will be a “Finissage”, an event presenting the combined results of the process as an exhibition

The Art Militia can be described as a social sculpture with creative purpose based on a simplified and decentralized version of military organizational and symbolic structure. In other words an apparent contradiction: A paramilitary organization with artistic purpose.

The project is partly inspired by the open-source software, anarchist militias with cell structure and various attempts to use "guerrilla strategy" in an art context.

Both the end products (artworks) and the common identity created by shared experiences and symbols are important. The project as a whole is a “work in progress” accumulating new signatures along the way.

There are substantial differences between an established military institution and the Art Militia: The use of rank primarily express seniority and responsibility rather than absolute authority, any participation is voluntary and individual units are autonomous.

The main similarity lies in the attempt to create a common identity through symbols and shared experience. A uniformed format creates a distinct threshold for participation, while linking together contributors across different approaches to the content.

It is possible that a community like this, based upon “a pastiche”, can provide the basis for artworks that extend beyond its innate (evt. basic) limitations?

The answer is not given, but the tactical advance is underway.