Explorations in Solidarity

Symposium within the frame of Something Raw, Saturday 18 February 2012 between 11.00 – 16 hours in Frascati WG

Tickets: 16 euro / students & > 27 10 euro  (including lunch)

In the present neo-liberal times the political democracy is suffering severe pressure. Politicians, intellectuals and artists are struggling to find satisfying solutions. Artists however have years of experience with developing alternative forms of living, co-operation and even economic models. They are used to live sober economical and material lives, they have developed alternative exchange and interactive formats that make cheap and sustainable production possible, they know how to build a strong singular identity. With others, not appropriating the other. In this symposium we aim to investigate these forms of collaboration more closely. To see if these models could help us shaping our own work practice and life in another way.

Rudi Laermans, Professor in sociological theory and sociology of arts at the University of Leuven in Belgium, will start the day with a lecture on his research findings on the collaborative strategies in the performing arts, describing the 'being-together' and 'working-together'in the globalized context as communalistic.

After the lunch break Artists in Occupy Amsterdam (AIOA) are presenting their experiences from their stay at the large green army tent at the Occupy Amsterdam camp and their concerns, relating artistic practice and social change. AIOA is a group of not only artists, but also writers, philosophers, sociologists, musicians, and economists. For two months this fluid collective committed to working to investigate how their disparate practices and working methods could be put to the service of imagining and instigating alternatives to the system. Now having entered a new phase beyond the boundaries of Occupy Amsterdam the group continues to work together on various projects to help visualize, theorize, imagine and act upon the worldwide demand for radical democratization that was being put forward in the Occupy movement, and seeking new and effective ways to share its agenda in favor of a democratization of our politics, our economy, our ecology and our public domain.
Current DAI student Katja van Driel together with Elke Uitentuis and Ernst van den Hemel, will do the "Artists in Occupy Amsterdam" presentation.

These two presentations are intended to help us think out loud how we can redesign our own working  and living situation, exchanging in adiscussion in which all symposium participants can join, hosted by Pascal Gielen.

Explorations in Solidarity is conceptualized with the help of Pascal Gielen, director of the research center Arts in Society at the Groningen University and associate Professor Sociology of Arts.

Made possible with the support of the research center Arts in Society at the Groningen University

Frascati WG (voormalig WG terrein)
M. vB. Bastiaansestraat 54
Amsterdam
www.theaterfrascati.nl