Seminar 4: 21 - 23 May 2025

Welcoming Note:

We will continue developing our collaborative work over this confluence. We will focus on different modes of group working and power mapping drawing from activist literature. We will also relate this to the notion of 'Soumud' or steadfastness. We will think together about participatory strategies via 'escape rooms'  and exercises 'to disappear'. We will also continue to think about the role of smell and micro-borders and how smell connects to plants and hormones. This will be complimented by different student-led exercises. 

Wednesday  21  May

Morning 

• Check in and Overview of the week 

• COOP Summit conversation / check-in with Peter and Flip

• Vocal warm up led by Alkmini Gkousiari

• Introduction of game by Billie Meiniche

• Exploring group working via Solidarity Knows No Borders Organising Workbook. 

Afternoon 

• Introduction to notion of ‘Soumud’ by Aziza Harmel

• Ideas mapping (part 1)

Evening 

• Artist Talk and Workshop, Kastė Šeškevičiūtė: Escape Room design and participatory structures 

Thursday 22 May 

Morning

• Check in

• Tereza Darmovzalova screening 

• Idea development (part 2) 

Afternoon

• Scent Workshop: Fatima Alaiwat 

• Group Discussion 

Evening

• Idea development (part 3)

Friday 23 May 

Morning

• Check in, idea development (part 4) 

• Group share 'how to disappear tactics'

Afternoon

• Idea development (part 5)

Evening

• Idea development part (6)

Seminar 3: 27 - 29 March 2025

This city of crossings, remnants, and contested memories, becomes our site for exploring ghosts—not as static figures of the past, but as presences that blend and embody different timelines. Here, the ghost operates as a method of being and moving, dissolving into history while surfacing in the present. It shifts between visibility and disappearance, navigating borders and absences, much like the city itself. Through action design and evasive strategies, we engage with spectral traces in urban space—interrogating surveillance, division, and subversion. What does it mean to vanish, to camouflage within the fabric of the city, or to occupy a space without claiming it? Through movement, listening, reconnaissance, and performative interventions, we will map, inhabit, and trouble the unseen architectures of Nicosia.

Thursday  27 March

Morning 

• Check in, overview of the week, student led vocal warm up, student led choreographic exercise

Afternoon 

• Action Design workshop Part 1 led by Hannah Davey. Exercises exploring disguise and reconnaissance and site analysis.

Evening 

• An exploratory walk through South Nicosia looking at monuments, public spaces, squats, and social spaces that have been the site of interventions, led by Lex Gregoriou.

Friday 28 March 

Morning

• Itinerant listening session

• Day long coach trip, Part 1, to Akrotiri Environmental Education Centre.

Afternoon

• Day long coach trip, Part 2, to The Cat Monastery and Kourion Ruins.

Evening

• Screening: The Watchman (2024) by Ali Cherri.

Saturday 29 March 

Morning

• Practicing how to disappear using exercises by Haytham El-Wardany.

• Action Design workshop Part 2 led by Hannah Davey. 

Afternoon

• Exploratory movement and listening score in the UN Buffer Zone led by Seta Astreou Karides. 

Evening

• Group reflection and future planning.

Seminar 2: 14 - 17 January 2025

We continue to explore practices of smuggling, trespass, and planting as a means of contesting borders. We consider how ‘borders cross people’ and the role of ritual, performance, and cunning they in turn demand as counter-maneuvers. Finally, we focus on time, time zones, and temporal division as socio-political borders, while examining timing in a choreographic sense to ‘read’ the pulse of the city and uncover the rhythms of resistance embedded within. In this, we also look into normalization and colonization of time, challenging its use as a tool of control and division that reinforces power structures.

Tuesday 14 January
Morning

• Environmental Justice Questions Workshop

Afternoon

• Presentations from the Study Group

• Group Discussion on Trespassing 

• Screening of Let it Flow by by Sophio Medoidze followed by online Q&A

Evening

• Online Presentation: Randa Toko on Seed Smuggling & Discussion 

Wednesday 15 January
Morning 

• Group Reading: People As Infrastructure by AbdouMaliq Simone 

Afternoon 

• Online Presentation: Presentation from Golo Besmlah (Noura Al Khasawneh & Areej Huniti) discuss their work  with the Arab Centre for the Protection of Nature (APN) on the "Revive Gaza’s Farmland" project.

• Online Presentation: Luiza Prado O Martins on Plants, Borders and Indigenous Knowledges

• Group Reading: When Nature Ends and Settlements Begin by Jumana Mana

Evening

• Screening of Foragers by Jumana Mana

Thursday 16 January
Morning 

• Group Reading: Porous Legalities by Lawrence Liang

• Q & A with Jumana Mana

Afternoon 

• Study Group Participant Devised Game by Alkmini Gkousiari and Ezter Dobros

• Group Discussion about Time and Time Zones in the context of Black Quantum Futurism and Time Zones-as-borders.

Evening 

• Study Group Participant workshop & Reading: Sewing Hidden Pockets by Aimee Phillips

Friday 17 January 
Morning 

• Listening Session on Time

Afternoon

• Online Presentation: Hannah Davey on Hagstones, Spells, Ritual and Magic in Activism

• Group reflections on the week with music

   

Seminar 1: 10 - 12 December 2024

Tuesday 10 December

Morning:
Participants to make 15 minute presentations about their practice and current interests in relation to COOP keywords (part 1)

Afternoon:
Group Reading: Smuggling: An Emboddied Criticality, Irit Rogoff 

Evening: 
Live Sonic Lecture from Marie Kølbæk Iversen

Wednesday 11 December

Morning:
Palestine Teach Out: Dahlia Taha 10.30 - 13.30

Or 

Reading Text, Reworlding Ramallah: Palestinian Science Fiction. Texts by Shayma Nadar and Adele Jarrar.

Afternoon: 
Talk and Somatic Exercise led by Marie Kølbæk Iversen

Participants to make 15 minute presentations about their practice and current interests in relation to COOP keywords (part 2)

Evening: 
Screening: The Melancholy of the Useless Afternoon, chapters 1 & 2 by Dina Mimi  followed by Q & A

Thursday 12 December

Morning:
Visit to the Border with Forest Architecture 

Afternoon / Evening 
Screening and Discussion: Skywalker (6 min) film about Serbian witches border negotiation and Q & A with Zoe Aino / Hannah Davey on the use of spells, hagstones and activism

Group Reading and Discussion: Text: Down with the World by Tony Chakar

Discussion: Reflection on the week and future plans and interests. Closing listening exercise.