In-home dinner and artist presentation by Joël Verwimp, “WHEN IS A SHIRT: Collective
Futures of Fascism”
Joël Verwimp's contribution combines performance, clothing, food, and historical research. Rather than
presenting a single argument, the letter outlines seven interconnected concerns that together
examine how everyday objects—especially the white dress shirt—are embedded in contemporary
systems of power. The work situates itself within what I describe as a techno-fascist economic
order, where objects circulate in a “phygital” space between material reality and digital image,
linking aesthetics, finance, labor, and authoritarian politics.
Using the white shirt as both material object and infrastructural node, the letter traces global supply
chains, from cotton production to forced labor in Xinjiang, revealing how seemingly neutral
commodities crystallize coercion and violence. Historical references to fascist movements’ use of
colored shirts—blue, brown, black, gray, and gold—underscore how uniforms function as portable
abstractions of discipline, belonging, and power. Repeated acts of dressing and undressing during
the lecture performance emphasize the instability of these classifications.
In response, the letter proposes art not as
...
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In-home dinner and artist presentation by Joël Verwimp, “WHEN IS A SHIRT: Collective
Futures of Fascism”
Joël Verwimp's contribution combines performance, clothing, food, and historical research. Rather than
presenting a single argument, the letter outlines seven interconnected concerns that together
examine how everyday objects—especially the white dress shirt—are embedded in contemporary
systems of power. The work situates itself within what I describe as a techno-fascist economic
order, where objects circulate in a “phygital” space between material reality and digital image,
linking aesthetics, finance, labor, and authoritarian politics.
Using the white shirt as both material object and infrastructural node, the letter traces global supply
chains, from cotton production to forced labor in Xinjiang, revealing how seemingly neutral
commodities crystallize coercion and violence. Historical references to fascist movements’ use of
colored shirts—blue, brown, black, gray, and gold—underscore how uniforms function as portable
abstractions of discipline, belonging, and power. Repeated acts of dressing and undressing during
the lecture performance emphasize the instability of these classifications.
In response, the letter proposes art not as representation but as practice: the creation of situations—
shirts, performances, clubs—that introduce distance, ambiguity, and indeterminacy. The white shirt
ultimately becomes an unfinished proposition, a collective experiment for reimagining how public
life might be organized otherwise.
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