IMMA — Self Determination Reader

Art and Self-Determination, edited by Lisa Moran and Stephen O’Neill, examines the relationship between artistic practice and political self-determination across contexts shaped by colonialism, nationalism, resistance, and cultural transformation. Bringing together essays, artistic reflections, and interdisciplinary perspectives, the publication explores how art operates not only as a reflection of political struggle, but as an active agent in the construction, negotiation, and contestation of collective identity.

The volume includes Jasmina Cibic’s essay “A Flag, a Song, a Palace: Exploring the Scenography of Europe’s First Foray into Transnationalism,” in which the artist examines the League of Nations as an early experiment in supranational governance and the instrumentalisation of culture as a form of diplomatic stagecraft. Drawing on archival research into the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Cibic analyses the architecture, gifted artworks, proposed flags, and musical compositions commissioned or donated to the League as attempts to construct a visual and symbolic language for transnational identity.

Through discussions of architecture competitions, diplomatic gift economies, cultural diplomacy, and the aesthetics of “neutrality,” the essay traces the contradictions embedded within projects of international solidarity and multilateralism. Cibic reflects on how art, design, and architecture became tools through which political power sought to materialise ideals of universality while simultaneously reproducing patriarchal and colonial structures beneath the façade of transnationalism.

Positioning culture as both instrument and witness of ideological systems, the publication as a whole reflects on the ways artistic practices engage histories of sovereignty, decolonisation, memory, and collective belonging, while opening speculative spaces for alternative political imaginaries.