Institute of Radical Imagination meets Squat Chain and the Greek cultural workers in occupation
in collaboration with Attrito Scuola Aperta and Ateliersi
This meeting brings together artists, cultural workers and other a(r)ctivists who have gone through different forms of urban occupation as a way of socialising and commoning culture. With us will be activists of Staub zu Glitzer/Squat Chain promoting the commoning of the Berlin Volksbühne and Greek art students occupying cultural institutions since the government passed a controversial decree on public sector salaries.
At a time when the post-industrial economies of the global north increasingly rely on housing speculation and profits in the cultural industry, artists and cultural workers have countered gentrification and privatisation by occupying cultural spaces earmarked for privatisation and restructuring, developing autonomous communities, democratising urban spaces, intervening in processes of urban development and instituting horizontal and bottom-up rights to the city.
Can art occupations be sustainable without being institutionally co-opted? What are the rules of self-organisation in occupied cultural spaces? Are they like those in any other kind of self-managed shopfloor or does culture necessitate a different kind of self-organisation? What are the possible mechanisms for preventing autonomy from turning into enclosure?
with:
Sarah Waterfeld, Cecilia Hussinger, Falk Lörcher / Staub zu Glitzer, Berlin
Thanos Papadogiannis / Drama School of the National Theater, Athens
Elena Novakovits / Cultural worker, Athens
Emanuele Braga / IRI & Macao, Milano
Mao Mollona / IRI & Attrito, Bologna
Gabriella Riccio / IRI, L’Asilo, Napoli
Anna Rispoli / Attrito, Brussels
The meeting will be held in English and Italian. Translation will be self-managed. Capacity is limited to 40 people, please be on time