Etcétera is the 2020–2022 Boris Lurie Fellow, whose fellowship project, NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM, is part of the Vera List Center’s As for Protocols cycle of programs.

In response to failing or inadequate international agreements and treaties signed to establish protocols for protecting the environment, Etcétera will develop NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM, a series of propositions for a Protocol of Buen Vivir (Good Living). A two-year platform, NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM is based on the Indigenous concept of Buen Vivir and will collect and create new and existing protocols to protect the environment developed by socio-environmental organizations, farmers, anti-GMO initiatives, art and ecology groups, Indigenous movements, environmental lawyers, and, more recently, mutual aids. An extension of their long-term project “Museum of Neo-Extractivism”, the project consists of artistic research on the neo-liberal extraction of natural resources that produces socio-environmental disasters and violations of human rights and those of other species and connects artists, activists, local communities and international guests. Together with interventions and workshops at The New School, it will generate stories and activities about the causes and consequences of the neo-extractive model.  

Formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists, poets, and performers. Since 2007 it has been led by co-founders Loreto Garín Guzmán (Chile) and Federico Zukerfeld (Argentina). In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist movement, an international organization that proclaims error as a philosophy of life. In addition to participating in exhibitions in museums and biennials such as the biennials of Jakarta (2015), São Paulo (2014), Athens (2013), Istanbul (2009), and Taipei (2008), they often work with street-art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial. In 2015, they received the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands. Their work has been recognized for its denouncement of human rights and environmental abuses through theatrical and poetic actions and statements often exercised at personal risk.

The Boris Lurie Fellowship is the first artist-named fellowship at the Vera List Center. Established with a grant from the Boris Lurie Art Foundation and the Schaina and Josephina Lurje Memorial Foundation, it is named after Boris Lurie (1924–2008), Holocaust survivor and founder of the NO!art movement. In tribute to Lurie’s life and The New School’s historic role as university-in-exile during World War Two, it is awarded to an artist living outside the U.S., with special consideration given to those who have faced political hardship. For more information about this artist and the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, please visit its website.