NICA recommends | Liberating Esoterics? For Anti-authoritarian Re-appropriation of Esotericism by Art

NICA recommends | Liberating Esoterics? For Anti-authoritarian Re-appropriation of Esotericism by Art
Date: 4-5 July 2025
Time: 17:00-20:15 (4 July); 14:00-20:50 (5 July)
Location: Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Lange Nieuwstraat 7, 3512 PA
Curators: Nikolay Smirnov and Soko Hwang
RSVP: info@casco.art
More information here.

A Performative Symposium In collaboration with Drifts. The participants are Kristiina Koskentola, Anders Kreuger, Soko Hwang, Jussi Nykänen, Birgit Menzel, Anna Tessmann, Go-Eun Im, Pia Lindman, Lotta Petronella, Minna Henriksson,  Glyukla, and Jussi Koitela.

The symposium is curated by Nikolay Smirnov and Soko Hwang. It is supported by Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Kone Foundation, and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Can esotericism be liberating? This question anchors the performative two-day symposium that brings together artists, scholars of religion, and curators from Finland and the Netherlands at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons. These practitioners are collectively united in their engagement with and examination of alternative spiritualities and various esoteric movements to think toward anti-authoritarian, emancipatory, and decolonial aims. In the framework of Liberating Esoterics?, they collectively convene to further navigate the possibilities and limits of esotericism as a tool of liberation through performative gestures and in conversation with one another. The symposium argues in favour of esotericism and spirituality as intrinsic to revolutionary struggle. Find the program outline and a contextual framework for the symposium below.

Program

Friday, 4 July: Eurasian Alchemy

17:00—17:10 Opening words
17:10—17:40 Talk by Nikolay Smirnov & Jussi Koitela talk
17:50—18:30 Book presentation by Birgit Menzel & Anna Tessmann
18:40—19:30 Film screening and talk by Kristiina Koskentola & Anders Kreuger
19:40—20:15 Performance by Jussi Nykänen (outdoor)

Saturday, 5 July:  Metaphysical Politics and Esoteric Citizenship

Metaphysical Politics
14:00—14:30 Film screening and talk by Go-Eun Im
14:40—15:10 Performance and talk by Pia Lindman (outdoor)
15:20—15:50 Performance and talk by Lotta Petronella (outdoor)
16:00—16:50 Panel discussion with Go-Eun Im, Pia Lindman, Lotta Petronella, Nikolay Smirnov, and Birgit Menzel

Esoteric Citizenship
18:00—18:30 Talk by Minna Henriksson
18:40—19:10 Talk by Glyukla (indoor)
19:20—20:00 Performance and talk by Soko Hwang
20:00—20:50 Panel discussion with Minna Henriksson, Glyukla, Soko Hwang, Nikolay Smirnov, and Anna Tessmann

Contextual Framework of Liberating Esoterics?

​​The initiative begins with an observation by Nikolay and Soko, who, in recent years, have witnessed a growing number of artistic practices that research and reenact alternative spiritualities in relation to various liberation causes. These include, for example, anti-authoritarian esotericism and the use of traditional knowledge by historically oppressed communities resisting colonialism.

However, artistic practices that engage with such spiritualities often carry a paradoxical ambiguity: while drawing from ancestral or primordial knowledge, they are frequently positioned as the next frontier of radical art. This can make it difficult to distinguish them from the contemporary appropriation of similar practices by reactionary groups whose politics stand in opposition to liberation.

In dominant discourse, mysticism and esotericism are often uncritically conflated and dismissed as inherently reactionary. Liberating Esoterics? challenges this assumption by shedding light on the liberatory roots—and present-day potential—of some of these traditions, opening space for alternative understandings.

Liberating Esoterics? demonstrates that these practices are distinct phenomena, each possessing its own progressive traditions. For example, esotericism has a rich anti-authoritarian lineage, encompassing universal transformative projects formulated by Freemasonry or revolutionary Romanticism. According to anti-authoritarian esotericism, access to ultimate truth and universal social justice lies within—at the “heart” or “ground” of the world, of human beings, or of matter—rather than in external authorities such as a transcendent God, the state, or any other dominant figure. This reveals a structural resonance between anti-authoritarian esotericism and revolutionary thought, demonstrating that esotericism and related alternative spiritualities have been—and can continue to be—a vital part of socio-political struggle.This symposium thus forms part of a resonant study trajectory that has shaped not only Unmapping Eurasia but also other initiatives at Casco, including the 2023 gathering around Kristiina Koskentola’s publication Enfleshed: Ecologies of Entities and Beings, her recent artistic proposal for our previous exhibition Sensing the Ways, Marjolijn Boterenbrood’s 2022 launch of her publication Letter to a Silk Road, and the DAI COOP study group Unmapping Eurasia, which operated from 2018 to 2019.