Manifesto: CAMPing Against Good Taste, High Art and Institutionalized Aesthetics

1. Visibility is Resistance.

Camp, as Susan Sontag declared, is “the glorification of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” Its history is deeply tied to queer communities, whose very existence has often been rendered invisible by the dominant culture. Camp reclaims visibility by embracing the flamboyant and the excessive, rejecting the invisibility imposed by institutions that define and police good taste. To be seen in all our artifice is a rebellion against a system that erases us.

2. Space is Ours to Reclaim.

Queer history is a history of reclamation: of bodies, identities, and spaces. Camp extends this reclamation into the realm of art and public space. While institutionalized art limits creativity to galleries, museums, and spaces governed by taste and class, camp thrives in the everyday, the improvised, and the contested. By occupying spaces—whether through glitter-drenched drag shows or tent cities—we critique the exclusionary nature of institutional spaces and declare that art belongs everywhere, to everyone.

3. Excess is Power.

Good taste condemns excess as vulgar, yet camp celebrates it as a radical expression of freedom. Queer communities have long embraced excess as a critique of societal norms, using flamboyance to draw attention to our existence and to reject the muted conformity demanded by institutions. Excess disrupts, overwhelms, and reclaims power from systems of control.

4. Protest is Performance.

Queer resistance has always been theatrical—from the dramatic flair of drag queens to the camp aesthetics of ACT UP protests during the AIDS crisis. Camp, as Sontag described, “sees everything in quotation marks.” It turns the serious into the playful, making protest an act of joy, defiance, and transformation. 

5. Contradiction is Strength.

Institutions demand coherence: art must be either serious or frivolous, beauty must be either profound or grotesque. Camp revels in contradiction. It is both sincere and ironic, joyous and biting, high and low. As Sontag noted, camp refuses judgment and embraces appreciation. For queer communities, this rejection of binaries mirrors our resistance to societal constraints on identity and expression.

6. The Camp is the Protest.

Camp, in its theatricality and subversion, is inherently political. For decades, queer communities have used camp aesthetics as a way to critique societal norms, from drag balls to Stonewall to Pride. Camp refuses to be confined to the rules of high art and instead makes art that is radical, participatory, and rebellious. A glittering protest tent, a feathered costume in a march—these are acts of camp, defying the institutionalized idea of what “real” art or protest should look like.

7. Community is Our Canvas.

Institutions isolate, elevating the individual artist-genius. Camp is communal, a shared sensibility born from queer circles that turned the margins into spaces of celebration. Sontag recognized camp as “a private code among like-minded people,” and for queer communities, it has been a language of resistance, connection, and liberation. 

We reject the tyranny of good taste, the elitism of high art, and the exclusionary practices of institutionalized aesthetics. Susan Sontag’s Notes on “Camp” taught us that camp is an aesthetic of contradiction, excess, and irony—a sensibility that disrupts norms and embraces the outrageous. For decades, queer communities have wielded camp as a critique of the systems that seek to erase us, turning the aesthetics of artifice into acts of resistance.

To camp is to protest. To protest is to perform. To perform is to reclaim.

As someone who has long existed outside of many societal norms, I’ve often found myself navigating spaces that aren’t designed for people like me. In this journey, I’ve discovered camp as a powerful aesthetic tool—a way to challenge and subvert the norms of taste, beauty, and propriety. Camp thrives on excess, exaggeration, and artifice, creating a space where the artificial is embraced and where identity can be exaggerated and queered. It’s a rejection of what is considered "natural" or "authentic," offering instead a vision of what the world could be: extravagant, contradictory, and unapologetically bold.

At the same time, I’ve come to see camping, especially in the context of political movements like Occupy Wall Street and Standing Rock, as a form of protest in its own right. In these movements, the act of camping wasn’t merely about seeking shelter—it was about claiming space, making a visible stand against systems of control, and challenging the dominant ideologies of land ownership and public space. The tent became a symbol of resistance, a way to assert collective identity and visibility in a world that tries to erase or marginalize certain voices.

Bringing camp as an aesthetic and camping as a form of protest together creates a powerful fusion of protest and performance. Linguistically, both terms—“camp” and “camping”—carry with them a sense of occupying space, whether physical or cultural. Camp, with its deliberate exaggeration, demands visibility and challenges cultural norms; camping, in its protest form, physically occupies public space to resist institutionalized power. By merging these two ideas, we deepen their meaning and impact. The act of camping becomes not just about shelter, but a performance of resistance against hegemonic structures. It transforms public space into a stage, where the absurdity of institutionalized norms is made visible through the lens of camp.

In bringing this approach into our school, I aim to challenge the institution’s rigid aesthetic standards and create a space where alternative, non-normative expressions are not only seen but celebrated. This combination of camp and camping offers a radical reimagining of art spaces as sites of protest—places where identity, culture, and resistance converge in a performative act of defiance. It’s about reclaiming space in both the literal and metaphorical sense, using camp as an aesthetic to destabilize the systems that seek to control artistic expression.