Aspects of the Resistance

Editor Soraja Hagspiel

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What protest movements have in common with marigolds: a visit to the ‘Disobedience Archive’ exhibition at the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art.

The exhibition Disobedience Archive (Canopy for Broken Time) at the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art is not a traditional exhibition format, but a growing, mobile archive. Since 2005, it has been collecting film works on protest movements worldwide, ranging from forms of civil resistance and collective practices to questions of counter-archives and global power structures. A specially curated selection from this archive is on display at the Migros Museum.

Visitors move through a multitude of video works presented beneath large, canopy-like structures. These open structures divide the space and create temporary places for gathering, viewing and reflection. They take up the idea of the Shamiana – a makeshift tent roof under which people in South Asia gather, exchange ideas or protest together. Beneath them, demonstrations, collective actions and personal stories unfold on screens or projections.

The archive functions as a counter-narrative to official historiography. It brings together perspectives from activists, migrant communities and marginalised groups, placing at the centre voices and experiences that are systematically excluded from official narratives.

Some works delve deep into global power structures. They show how infrastructure projects, such as oil and gas pipelines, transform landscapes and shape people’s lives. Others shift the focus to the actors themselves: in a video, Bolivian sex workers, together with the collective Mujeres Creando, a performative narrative of their experiences, thereby reclaiming the authority to interpret their own stories.

Amidst these often direct images, quiet, almost poetic forms of disobedience also emerge. One work shows a collective planting marigolds, thereby symbolically creating a space outside existing orders. Such gestures may seem inconspicuous, but they open up new possibilities for coexistence.

The exhibition brings to life just how diverse disobedience and resistance can be: loud or quiet, collective or individual, documentary or performative. This wealth of perspectives cannot be taken in at a glance – it is worth setting aside time or coming back another day.

Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst

Disobedience Archive

In spring, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst will present the Disobedience Archive initiated by Marco Scotini. This dynamic, ever-evolving video archive ...

Published from Soraja Hagspiel on April 02, 2026.