Prefiguring Performance

This article looks at the practices of Shell Out Sounds and BP or not BP?, two environmentalist groups that stage interventionist performances against oil sponsorship of the arts in the UK. By considering theories of prefiguration in activism and social movements, and the framework of participation in live art and performance, this article asks: Can activist performance be prefigurative and interventionist at the same time? And, if activist performance has potential for prefiguration, where is this potential found? In order to answer these questions the author looks at the organisational processes of these groups, their relationship to arts institutions, and the dynamics of participation in their performances. As a consequence of this analysis, the author suggests that the transgressive use of institutional spaces for unsolicited artistic–political actions can, in addition to pursuing environmental goals, put forward prefigurative forms of participatory art making, as well as allowing a space for the transformation of political subjectivities.