🗓20/09/23 🕦19:30 📍Sale Docks, Dorsoduro 265, Venezia
Obiettivo: chiudere la scrittura della Carta metropolitana del lavoro culturale.
In una città in cui la surreale discussione ruota attorno al biglietto di ingresso, in cui i posti letto per turisti superano i residenti, in cui più la crisi morde più i prezzi salgono (a livelli grotteschi), nessuno discute di migliorare le condizioni di chi lavora nell’arte e nella cultura come semplice strategia per permettere a tant_ giovan_ di diventare residenti. Eppure siamo qui, tant_, come abbiamo dimostrato nelle precedenti assemblee di Biennalocene e siamo anche decis_ a non arrenderci all’avanzare del deserto. La nostra carta parla di salario minimo metropolitano, di rispetto e applicazione dei giusti contratti, di farla finita con le false p. IVA, di sicurezza, di superare il sistema delle esternalizzazioni, di giustizia di genere e altro ancora.
Goal: to complete the writing of the Metropolitan Charter of Cultural Work.
In a city where the surreal discussion revolves around the entrance ticket, where the number of beds for tourists exceeds the number of residents, where the more the crisis bites, the more the prices rise (to grotesque levels), no one is discussing improving the conditions of those who work in the field of art and culture as one simple strategy to pursue to allow many young people to become residents. Yet we are here, as we have demonstrated in our previous Biennalocene open public assemblies and we are also determined not to give up to the void that gains more and more terrain. Our charter talks about the metropolitan minimum wage, about respecting and applying correct contracts, about putting an end to false VATs, and about work ssafety, to overcome tosic outsourcing, about gender justice and more.
invitano tutte le lavoratrici ed i lavoratori della cultura a partecipare alla seconda assemblea aperta verso la co-scrittura di un codice etico per le istituzioni culturali a Venezia
invite all cultural workers to participate in the second open assembly towards the co-writing of an ethical code of conduct for cultural institutions in Venice
BIENNALOCENE Se ‘l mare fosse de tocio is an event by the Goethe-Institut and Institut of Radical Imagination in the framework of Performing Architecture a series of events run by the Goethe-Institut as program partner of the German Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.
Corte delle Casette, Calle Cantiere (Giudecca Palanca), 19 May 2023 h 7.30 pm
with the participation of Federica Arcoraci, Emanuele Brocardo, Est Coulon, Valentina Pettosini, Enrico Pittalis, Davide Tolfo + 5 workers who prefer to remain anonymous
NOTES FFROM A PERFORMATIVE INVESTIGATION by Marco Baravalle on ARCH+
BIENNALOCENE, Corte delle Casette, Giudecca Venezia
from Art for UBI (Manifesto) a militant research on the conditions of cultural work in Venice
BIENNALOCENE is a performative inquiry into the conditions of cultural work in Venice. The play was written starting from a series of interviews with a group of workers in the Venetian cultural industries. The interviewees themselves will stage their considerations on professional and existential precariousness, housing, income and the future of the lagoon city to the test of global warming.
The performance takes its cue from Art For UBI, a project by the Institute of Radical Imagination which started in 2021 with the collective writing of a manifesto in which the art world takes a position in favor of universal basic income and which resulted in the publication of the book “Art For UBI (Manifesto)”, (Bruno, 2021).
da Art for UBI (Manifesto) una ricerca militante sulle condizioni del lavoro culturale a Venezia
BIENNALOCENE è una ricerca militante sulle condizioni del lavoro culturale a Venezia e sull’ecosistema Biennale, grande evento che mobilita centinaia di lavoratori e lavoratrici ogni anno. A partire dalle interviste effettuate ad un gruppo diversificato di questi lavoratori e queste lavoratrici (precari, stagionali, freelancers, artisti, mediatori, tecnici, addetti alle pulizie e non solo) emerge una drammaturgia che da vita ad un’assemblea performativa animata dagli stessi intervistati e messa in scena nello spazio pubblico.
La performance prende spunto da Art For UBI, progetto dell’Institute of Radical Imagination iniziato nel 2021 con la scrittura collettiva di un manifesto in cui il mondo dell’arte prende posizione a favore del reddito di cittadinanza universale e che ha portato alla pubblicazione di il libro “Art For UBI (Manifesto)”, (Bruno, 2021).
We start from ourselves and within the networks the Institute of Radical Imagination is connected and has cross paths with sharing an enquiry (only 5 questions!) to think together with agents committed to forms of Militant Research.
Every effort that builds common spaces for action and militancy is precious, but it is also tricky. Time, physical, organisational, mental and economic reserves feed and grow along with those of others. At the same time, the more militancy grows, than the more limited these reserves become. Moreover, it is already hard to do commoning within collective organisations, and it is even harder to act intersecting other groups, struggles and claims. Yet so many past and recent struggles teach us the importance of keeping this intersectional approach. Moreover, this is vital to face the cyclical moments of backsliding
This is a short semi-permanent self-inquiry with which we want to try to ask questions together rather than count the answers. We do this starting from and around our nodes and we hope you want to join us.
Talk performativa 14.12.22 ore 18:30 Libreria bruno Dorsoduro, 2729 Venezia
In collaborazione con Sale Docks, Art for UBI (manifesto): A cura di: Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga, Gabriella Riccio (Institute of Radical Imagination) – Intervengono: Federica Arcoraci, Chiara Buratti, Ilenia Caleo, Roberta Da Soller e IRI Institute of Radical Imagination
Art for UBI (manifesto): il libro è il primo volume della Collana IRI il cui scopo è quello di produrre conoscenza in comune e attorno al commoning situato all’intersezione tra arte, pedagogia e attivismo per una transizione verso il post capitalismo.
Art for UBI è un manifesto: il mondo dell’arte si posiziona a favore del reddito di cittadinanza universale e incondizionato, ponendo in primo piano le sue condizioni di vantaggio in termini economici, sociali ed ecologici. Il manifesto nasce come scrittura collettiva all’interno della School of Mutations, un progetto dell’Institute of Radical Imagination, una piattaforma internazionale di artisti, ricercatori, attivisti e curatori impegnati nella sperimentazione di pratiche artistiche post-capitaliste. Oltre all’introduzione delle curatrici, il volume raccoglie i contributi di diverse artiste, teoriche e attiviste che affrontano UBI nel panorama della precarietà generalizzata del lavoro artistico, della domanda di reddito nelle lotte transfemministe e decoloniali, delle pratiche mutualistiche nel scena artistica indipendente, il rapporto tra finanza, fabulazione e cripto filosofia.
Contributi: Emanuele Braga, Kuba Szreder, Ilenia Caleo, Maddalena Fragnito and Raising Care Assembly, Gabriela Cabaña and Julio Linares, Erik Bordeleau.
A cura di: Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga, Gabriella Riccio (Institute of Radical Imagination)
Per acquistare la pubblicazione il link è bruno, Venezia
THE DEMOCRACY PAVILION FOR EUROPE Ljubljana, March 9-11, 2022 ZRC SAZU
The Democracy Pavilion is a conference in Ljubljana organized by L’Internationale association and Zrc Sazu . Part of the #TheEuropeanPavilion program by European Cultural Foundation
Plans for this conference were first drawn up some months ago and we doubted whether to carry it on. We decided to use this platform to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and condemn the war.
We will begin the sessions on March 9 with news from artists and cultural workers in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora, to listen to what they want and need.
Our question: what does democracy mean in these current, bleak conditions? How do we both seek to defend the limited space to think and act that we still have and push for a new sense of living well and caring for the planet we share?
📺 online at European Cultural Foundation YT channel
Plans for the Democracy Pavilion were first drawn up some months ago. However, with the current Russian’s army invasion of Ukraine in our minds, L’Internationale association wants to use this platform to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and condemn the military invasion that affects the lives of millions of civilians.
During the three days, we will discuss many issues of democracy, Europe, colonial legacies and contemporary empires. We will do this with Ukraine in our minds and our hearts. We share the urgency of stopping the war and we are taking the actions that are in our hands as civilians to demand an immediate end to the attacks. In addition to solidarity with those who directly suffer from Russian aggression, we also want to stand with those who resist from inside Russia and who risk their own lives and well-being to defend others. Together, we must try to use art to imagine a society that will prevent such conflicts in future, and then go on to build it. We hope our conference can contribute a little to all these urgencies.
While condemnation of the war is crucial, it is in itself only one necessary step. We also find it important to maintain the spaces for public debate and analysis of the causes of the war and the position of arts and culture when life and democratic values are under threat. In that light, we carry the pain of ongoing conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere, as well as the histories of exploitation and erasure that still manifest themselves in the present. Our question remains what does democracy mean in these current, bleak conditions? How do we both seek to defend the limited space to think and act that we still have, and push for a new sense of living well and caring for the planet we share? We will begin the sessions on Wednesday with news from artists and cultural workers in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora. We hope that some of them will be able to travel to Ljubljana so that we can listen to what they want and need. With this invasion, it is more clear than ever that real existing democracy is under existential threat. While it is true that European democracies are imperfect, they have allowed for governments that are to some degree responsive to open, independent elections decided by debate and argument. Today, even that version of democracy is something we need to defend, as well as to nurture the better, more equitable, more joyful versions we hope can yet emerge. Re-energizing our common futures is something to which everyone can contribute; but we believe that the arts can play its role as an initiator of imaginative epistemologies and a new ethic of living together within the limits of the planet. We want to use this opportunity to explore that belief.
Curated by Zdenka Badovinac and Charles Esche, the Democracy Pavilion for Europe aims to contribute to the rethinking and potential revival of communal forms of decision making as a vision and practice, with artists playing a key role in their conception of different and better worlds and an ethics of living together differently on this planet.
The aim of the Democracy Pavilion for Europe conference is to concentrate artistic, activist, and institutional energies. The objective is to find ways for the creative community to understand democracy and its limits, articulate its values, and propose forms through which to build a new commitment to shared control, public interest and the commons.
The Pavilion will start as an international conference in Ljubljana on 9–11 March, organized by the L’Internationale association in cooperation with ZRC SAZU. This is the first step in the Pavilion’s planned programme that will unfold through local workshops at L’Internationale confederation member locations and transform into an online pavilion at: http://www.internationaleonline.org.
The Democracy Pavilion for Europe is part of The European Pavilion – an initiative by the European Cultural Foundation that aims to support and promote artistic projects that imagine desirable and sustainable futures for Europe. The European Pavilion was initiated by the Amsterdam-based European Cultural Foundation and is developed in partnership with the Camargo Foundation, the Kultura Nova Foundation, and Fondazione CRT.
Over the course of 2021, seven arts and cultural organizations in various countries across Europe have joined this exciting new initiative: ARNA (Sweden), Brunnenpassage (Austria), INIVA (London), OGR Torino (Italy), State of Concept (Greece), Studio Rizoma (Italy) and L’Internationale (Ljubljana, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain and Poland).
More information at: theeuropeanpavilion.eu
Coordination of the Democracy Pavilion: Nika Ham, Maria Mallol
PROGRAM
9 March, Day 1
Should we stay or should we go? Leaving or reforming liberal democracy
This day will be devoted to looking at people/groups/organizations that are questioning their experience of existing democracy and investigating an “elsewhere”, thinking about cultural efforts in communities, in cultural education, in other forms of change. Is existing liberal democracy a viable way towards emancipation, inclusion, and social justice? What is the potential relation between culture, social justice, and democracy? What cultural forms might sensibly contribute to these aims?
10:00–10:30 Welcome. Oto Luthar, Zdenka Badovinac, Charles Esche. On zoom: André Wilkens (Director of the European Cultural Foundation) and Lore Gablier (ECF program manager) presenting the European Pavilion Program and the European Culture for Solidarity Fund.
10:30–12:00 Artists and Democracy – Panel 1 Emergency action. Contributions from / for Ukraine.
Open panel. Artists and cultural workers in the Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora. including Nikita Kadan (artist and curator) and others depending on the current situation.
COFFEE BREAK
12:15–12:45 In conversation with Iskra Geshoska (zoom) 12:45- 14:00 Artists and Democracy – Panel 2 Gabriella Riccio – IRI Nika Autor
Moderator: Charles Esche
14:00h- 15:00 Lunch 15:00–17:00 Artists and Democracy – Panel 3 Dmitry Vilensky (zoom) Antifascist Year Eszter Szakács Moderator: Charles Esche
17:00–17:30 In conversation with Hazal Halavut (zoom) COFFEE BREAK
18:15 EVENING LECTURE Peter Klepec
10 March, Day 2
Using Democracy
On the second day, actors are invited who are active in politics, theory and institutional organisation and who make use of culture and art in their work. They are working within and around the liberal democratic nation state and the public sector, often looking for the opportunities it affords for dissent and for taking democratic power. How to use or access the languages of art and culture to question democracy or hold the state to its stated ideals? What is the relationship between democracy and public cultural institutions and subsidies? What is needed to reshape existing liberal democracy away from its apparent capture by the conservative and revolutionary right? 10:00–11:00 Conversation (zoom): Manuel Borja-Villel and Joanna Mytkowska Towards the Museum of the Commons.
What is the use of apparently democratic public institutions today? Moderator: Zdenka Badovinac
COFFEE BREAK
11:00–13:00 The Use and Abuse of Existing Structures
Asta Vrečko Tomislav Medak Aleksei Borisionok
Moderator: Bojana Piškur
13:00–14:00 – Lunch
14:00- 17:30 Constituting and reconstituting: practices and repairs
15:20-15:40 Rolando Vasquez 15:40-16:10 Marcelo Expósito 16:10-16:30 Jonas Staal
16:30-17:30 Questions and open discussion
Moderator: Corina Oprea
COFFEE BREAK
18:15 EVENING LECTURE, Tomaž Mastnak
11 March, Day 3
Kakšna sramota! (What a shame!) The Case of Slovenia
The case of Slovenia: what is happening here and why? What is to be done about it in the cultural field? Artists, cultural workers, and activists from Slovenia are invited to discuss their role in the fight for democracy as it is currently threatened in Slovenia. The day will be dedicated to the sustainability of such resistance – to its economy, structure, networking, and archiving.
10:00 Introduction of the Historical Context Oto Luthar, historian and director ZRC SAZU (introduction by Zdenka Badovinac)
COFFEE BREAK
11:00–12:30 Artists and Activists – Panel I
NON-GRUPA Protestna ljudska skupščina (The Protest People’s Assembly) Aktiv delavk in delavcev v kulturi (The Culture Workers Active): Petja Grafenauer, Miha Zadnikar Vladozlom (via Zoom) 12:30-14:00 LUNCH 14:30–15:30 Artists and Activists – Panel II Miha Blažič, N’toko Tjaša Pureber COFFEE BREAK 15:30-17:30 WORKSHOPS Workshop 1: Artistic approach as basic tool of non-violent protests, Jaša Jenull (representative of The Protest People’s Assembly) The workshop will discuss the mechanisms, experiences, and practical approaches that have helped us carry out more than 90 mass protests and a large number of small artivist interventions over the past two years of struggle against the far right government in Slovenia. Through practical examples, we will present our answers to some of the key questions we have faced in our two years of constant presence on the street. Among others: How to make the invisible visible? How to effectively utilize mass media? How to maintain protest mobilization with the help of art in the long run? How to empower and connect the wider community of protesters using artistic approaches. The second part of the workshop will present a concrete protest action that will take place on the same day and offer participants the opportunity to participate in the protest itself.
Workshop 2: Culture, art, and political activism – key problems today, Miha Zadnikar (representative of the Culture workers active) This workshop will touch on crucial points of the (quite changed) activism / art / culture relationship that are critically seen from a critical perspective today.
The main topics will be:
a) older, recent, and unconscious traps of liberal / illiberal democracies
b) aggressive times of biopolitics; radical state repression and “predatory capitalism”
c) disintegrated subjects within the so-called cultural and creative sectors; cultural fetishism; defetism; recent unexpected difficulties in shaping heterogeneous political movements
d) questioning the “activism of names and family names”; personal career-making activism; grass-roots vs. NGO trends; autonomy and non-hierarchical politics
e) spontaneous inclinations towards a liberal political worldview / liberal jargon
f) opportunities and obstacles in attempts to move away from ideological struggles (with using reorganized and sharpened “national culture”) towards more productive (class) ways of struggle.
Participants:
Antifascist Year (Bogna Stefanska and Jakub Depczinsky), Nika Autor, Zdenka Badovinac, Miha Blažič – N’toko, Aleksei Borisionok, Tania Bruguera, Charles Esche, Marcelo Expósito, Iskra Geshoska, Petja Grafenauer and Miha Zadnikar (representatives of The Culture workers active), Hazal Halavut, Sandi Hilal, Jaša Jenull (representative of The Protest People’s Assembly), The Protest People’s Assembly, Nikita Kadan, Peter Klepec, Oto Luthar, Tomaž Mastnak, Tomislav Medak, Joanna Mytkowska, NON-GRUPA, Corina Oprea, Tjaša Pureber, Gabriella Riccio, Jonas Staal, Eszter Szakács, Rolando Vásquez, Dmitry Vilensky, Asta Vrečko, Miha Zadnikar (representative of the Workers in Culture Task Group), Vladozlom
