PROPOSITIONS FOR NON-FASCIST LIVING

PROPOSITIONS #2: Assemblism 25 NOVEMBER 2017 Performative conference

Program With: Propositions #2: Assemblism

Kate Shea Baird ( en We are witnessing the rise of a political representatives, and activists Comú); Merve Bedir (architect and new authoritarian world order. discuss the cultural dimensions of co-founder of Land+Civilization From Trump in the United States performative assembly, from pan- Compositions); Grégory Castéra to Temer in Brazil, from manifold European movements to forms of (curator and co-founder of Council ultranationalist and fascist non-human assembly, seeking new ); Maya Felixbrodt (composer and movements in Europe to Erdoğan in alliances in the face of the rising musician); iLiana Fokianaki (writer Turkey, from Putin in Russia to Modi authoritarian world order. and curator, State of Concept, Extra in India: new divisions of “us” and City); Quinsy Gario (artist, activist, “them” are imposed. Propositions #2: Assemblism is the and 2017–2018 BAK Fellow); Menno second performative conference of Grootveld (DiEM25 The Netherlands); Simultaneously, from the Arab Spring BAK’s long-term research itinerary Havin Güneşer (journalist and to Los Indignados, from the Rojava Propositions for Non-Fascist women’s rights activist, Freedom for Revolution to Black Lives Matter Living, prompted by the dramatic Abdullah Öcalan/Peace in Kurdistan); and the rise of new pan-European resurfacing and normalization Ernst van den Hemel (researcher movements, millions of bodies have of historical and contemporary at Utrecht University and activist); gathered in liberated autonomous fascisms in our present. Propositions Birgitta Jónsdóttir (poet, Icelandic zones, occupied buildings, city for Non-Fascist Living attempts to Pirate Party); KUCHENGA (writer squares, prisons, and cultural spaces articulate and inhabit methods of and agitator, Black Lives Matter to collectively enact a different de-individualized living; methods in UK, Bent Bars Collective); Aurélie demand for egalitarian society. which multiplicity and difference Lierman (radio producer, vocalist, enact relations other than those and composer); Lorenzo Marsili Philosopher Judith Butler terms enamored with power and hierarchy. (founder of European Alternatives such practices as “performative and member of DiEM25 coordinating assembly,” 1 describing how bodies Propositions #2: Assemblism committee); Shela Sheikh (researcher whose structures of life support is developed following the 2017 at Goldsmiths, University of ); are severely threatened gather, collaboration between Jonas Staal (artist and founder of seeking new collectivity in response BAK and Studio Jonas Staal’s New Unions); Igor Stokfiszewski to their shared experience of campaign New Unions (2016– (journalist, artist, and activist, precarity. Butler partially relies on ongoing), with contributions from, Political Critique, DiEM25); and an artistic vocabulary to describe among others, architect Paul Kuipers Samuel Vriezen (composer and writer). how performative assembly brings and designer Remco van Bladel. The into being different social forms of campaign developed installations living and alternate institutionalities. for the public assemblies of the She speaks of the assembly as pan-European Democracy in Europe “assemblage” 2 and as a practice with Movement 2025 (DiEM25), which are “theatrical” 3 components. on display during the performative conference. What democratic cultures manifest through assemblist practices? And The activities of BAK have been

1 Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory how do such democratic cultures made possible through financial of Assembly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University contribute to establishing new forms contributions by the Dutch Ministry Press, 2015). 2 Ibid., p. 68. of emancipatory (self-)governance? of Education, Culture and Science 3 Ibid., p. 85. During this event, art workers, and the City Council, Utrecht. Program

11.30–12.00 12.30–12.40 15.15–16.45 DOORS OPEN INTRODUCTION BY MODERATOR ILIANA FOKIANAKI SECOND ASSEMBLY: NON-HUMAN ASSEMBLAGES Keynote by Shela Sheikh (researcher, Goldsmiths, University of London), followed 12.00–12.10 12.40–13.10 by a conversation with Merve Bedir (architect, WELCOME: PROPOSITIONS FOR NON-FASCIST LIVING KEYNOTE LECTURE BY LORENZO MARSILI Land+Civilization Compositions), moderated Maria Hlavajova (BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, by Grégory Castéra (curator and co-founder of Utrecht) Council Paris) 13.10–13.25 What does it mean when a contemporary RESPONSE BY IGOR STOKFISZEWSKI Practices of performative assembly are art institution parts from traditional modes often understood as forms of human of societal critique and moves toward gathering, but humans depend also on one of propositions, especially when 13.25–13.50 larger ecological assemblages. How do confronting the rise of a new, authoritarian CONVERSATION non-human subjectivities assemble, and world order? how are their political agencies to be understood and recognized? 13.50–13.55 12.10–12.30 STATEMENT FROM THE AUDIENCE BY MENNO ASSEMBLISM: INTRODUCTION GROOTVELD 15.15–15.25 Jonas Staal (artist, New Unions) INTRODUCTION BY GRÉGORY CASTÉRA

How to define, through the work of Butler, 13.55–14.00 the artistic dimension of performative SUMMARY BY ILIANA FOKIANAKI 15.25–15.45 assembly? And how does assemblism LECTURE BY SHELA SHEIKH change the practices of artists, and the definition of art as such? 14.00–14.15 COMPOSING ASSEMBLY—FIRST ACT 15.45–16.05 Composition by Maya Felixbrodt (composer LECTURE BY MERVE BEDIR 12.30–14.00 and musician), Aurélie Lierman (radio artist, FIRST ASSEMBLY: THE PAN-EUROPEAN ASSEMBLY vocalist, and composer), and Samuel Vriezen Keynote by Lorenzo Marsili (European (composer and writer) 16.05–16.40 Alternatives, DiEM25), with iLiana Fokianaki CONVERSATION (writer and curator, State of Concept Athens, How do the manifold voices and manifold Extra City), Menno Grootveld (DiEM25 The composers in performative assembly Netherlands), and Igor Stokfiszewski (Political translate to new democratic cultures—a 16.40–16.45 Critique, DiEM25) musical culture in particular? SUMMARY BY GRÉGORY CASTÉRA

The future of the European Union has been taken hostage by the ultranationalists 14.15–15.15 16.45–17.00 gathered in the “Leave” campaign and the LUNCH BREAK COMPOSING ASSEMBLY—SECOND ACT Eurocratic austerity elite in the “Remain” Composition by Maya Felixbrodt (composer camp. What other options can be imagined and musician), Aurélie Lierman (radio artist, and put into practice in order to assemble a vocalist, and composer), and Samuel Vriezen transdemocratic union? (composer and writer)

17.00–17.30 18.10–18.25 BREAK ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL IN CONVERSATION WITH KATE SHEA BAIRD

17.30–19.30 THIRD ASSEMBLY: AFTER THE ASSEMBLY 18.25–18.40 Conversation between Kate Shea Baird ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL IN CONVERSATION WITH (Barcelona en Comú), Havin Güneşer (Freedom BIRGITTA JÓNSDÓTTIR for Abdullah Öcalan/Peace in Kurdistan), Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Icelandic Pirate Party), and KUCHENGA (Black Lives Matter UK), moderated 18.40–19.25 by Ernst van den Hemel (researcher at Utrecht CONVERSATION University and activist)

In North and West Kurdistan, decades 19.25–19.30 of secretive assembly have led to SUMMARY BY ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL revolutionary declarations of regional autonomy. In Catalonia and Spain, 15M/ Los Indignados translated energies and 19.30–19.45 imaginaries into new political parties and COMPOSING ASSEMBLY—CLOSING ACT municipal governance. How is power taken Composition by Maya Felixbrodt (composer and practiced differently after the moment and musician), Aurélie Lierman (radio artist, of assembly? vocalist, and composer), and Samuel Vriezen (composer and writer)

17.30–17.40 INTRODUCTION BY ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL 19.45–20.45 DINNER

17.40–17.55 ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL IN CONVERSATION WITH HAVIN 20.45–21.30 GÜNEŞER ROET IN HET ETEN BOOK LAUNCH Book launch of Roet in het Eten by Quinsy Gario (poet, artist, and 2017–2018 BAK Fellow) 17.55–18.10 ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL IN CONVERSATION WITH KUCHENGA

A vegetarian lunch (€5) and dinner (€10) catered by Utrecht-based Rammenas and Koffie Leute can be purchased during the event.

KATE SHEA BAIRD GRÉGORY CASTÉRA Kunsthal, Antwerp. Fokianaki is the joined Barcelona en Comú in June of is a co-founder and co-director of founder of State of Concept Athens, 2014. She coordinates the platform’s Council, Paris. He has served as Athens. International Committee, which a co-director of Les Laboratoires organized the Fearless Cities summit d’Aubervilliers, Aubervilliers, a STATE OF CONCEPT ATHENS in June 2017, bringing together over coordinator of Bétonsalon, Paris, Founded in 2013, State of Concept 100 municipal platforms from all over and is a co-author at the online Athens is the first nonprofit gallery the world for the first time. project Encyclopédie de la Parole in Greece to promote Greek and (Encyclopedia of Spoken Words). international artists through BARCELONA EN COMÚ exhibitions. In addition, State of Launched in June 2014, Barcelona en COUNCIL Concept Athens organizes a variety Comú functions as a citizen platform. Council is a nonprofit organization of events, projects, and aims to be Its political agenda advocates based in Paris that assembles a bridge between Athens and the social justice and community rights, knowledge from the arts, sciences, international contemporary art scene. promotes participatory democracy, and civil society in order to foster and develops a new model of tourism new understandings of societal for Barcelona. Through collective issues. Founded in 2013, Council QUINSY GARIO action, the platform proposes a curates exhibitions, creates public is a visual and performance artist transparent and collaborative model programming, commissions artworks from the Dutch Caribbean. His work for the city and its institutions. and texts, and has a fellowship Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012) program. critiqued the knowledge surrounding the racist Dutch figure and practice MERVE BEDIR of Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). Gario is a co-founder of Land+Civilization MAYA FELIXBRODT holds an MA from the Master Artistic Compositions, and a PhD candidate plays viola, composes, draws Research program at the Royal at the Faculty of Architecture and faces, makes large-scale collages, Academy of Art, The Hague, and has the Built Environment at Delft dances, researches movement and an academic background in gender University of Technology, Delft. She music, makes performance art, studies and postcolonial studies. is a member of Matbakh-Mutfak, sings, improvises, makes videos, a transnational women’s collective writes about her dreams, writes in Gaziantep, a founding member poetry, performs as a soloist and MENNO GROOTVELD of the Center for Spatial Justice in with ensembles, and initiates and is a journalist, translator, and Istanbul, and part of Future+Aformal takes part in many musical and publisher with a background in Academy, an independent school for interdisciplinary collaborations, pirate radio, television editing, and urbanism and art in Shenzhen. Her including her ensembles Zvov, 32, organizing media conferences. He is first bookVocabulary of Hospitality is and GHOM. She is also the curator a member of Democracy in Europe forthcoming (2017). of Synzine, a magazine for musical Movement 2025 (DiEM25) The games. Netherlands. LAND+CIVILIZATION COMPOSITIONS DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE Land+Civilization Compositions, ILIANA FOKIANAKI MOVEMENT 2025 (DIEM25) based in Randstad and Istanbul, is a writer and curator. She is a DiEM25 is a pan-European, cross- uses multidisciplinary practices and co-founder of the platform Future border movement working toward collaborations to work on the issues Climates, is conducting PhD research a democratized European Union surrounding built form in a variety of on the synapses between art, identity, in the face of rising nationalisms. contexts. politics, and economy at Panteion Launched in 2015, DiEM25 organizes University, Athens, and since March through participation and openness 2017, is a curator of Extra City to develop common answers to the five crises they identify as affecting expression, information, and digital compositional structure (or vice Europe: debt, banks, poverty, low privacy. versa), and presents new music by investment, and migration. In addition myriad emerging composers. She to Grootveld, Propositions #2: ICELANDIC PIRATE PARTY appears as a sound artist and vocalist Assemblism contributors Lorenzo Founded in 2012, the Icelandic Pirate on two albums by Nurse With Wound. Marsili and Igor Stokfiszewski are Party is a political party whose affiliated with DiEM25. core policies include: democracy, transparency, civil rights, the right to LORENZO MARSILI self-determination, public access to is a writer, political activist, the HAVIN GÜNEŞER information, and responsible decision founding director of the transnational is an engineer, journalist, and a making. In the 2017 parliamentary organization European Alternatives, women’s rights activist. She is elections in Iceland, the party and one of the initiators of the pan- one of the spokespersons for the received 9.2 percent of the votes and European movement DiEM25. He international initiative Freedom for now has six parliamentary seats. has previously worked in journalism Abdullah Öcalan/Peace in Kurdistan and was the founding editor of and a translator of Öcalan’s books. Naked Punch Review. His latest book KUCHENGA Citizens of Nowhere is forthcoming FREEDOM FOR ABDULLAH is a writer, an agitator, and an avid (2018). ÖCALAN/PEACE IN KURDISTAN consumer of all culture, high and Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan/Peace low. She is a Black trans feminist EUROPEAN ALTERNATIVES in Kurdistan is an international whose work sparkles with vivacity European Alternatives is a civil initiative launched in 1999 after and originality. A member of Black society organization that is dedicated the arrest of the Kurdish leader. It Lives Matter UK and the Bent Bars to exploring the potentials of works for a peaceful and democratic Collective, she lives by the River transnational politics and culture. solution of the Kurdish question. The Thames in London and can be found The organization carries its messages initiative is committed to lobbying, frolicking in Battersea Park with her of democracy, equality, and culture public relations work, and publishing. dog Nene. beyond the nation-state through means of participatory spaces, BLACK LIVES MATTER UK (BLMUK) campaigns, events, publications, and ERNST VAN DEN HEMEL BLMUK is the United Kingdom the annual Transeuropa Festival. is a researcher at the Department of chapter of the Black Lives Matter Philosophy and Religious Studies at Global Network, working for Black Utrecht University, Utrecht and an empowerment and the end of SHELA SHEIKH activist. His scholarly work covers violence on Black communities. teaches at Goldsmiths, University of topics of nationalism, populism, and The coalition is committed to all London, London, where she convenes religion. Black lives, works in coordination the MA Postcolonial Culture and with other anti-racist groups, is not Global Policy and the PhD Cultural affiliated with any political party, and Studies programs. Her current BIRGITTA JÓNSDÓTTIR embraces intersectionality within the research focuses on colonialism, is a “poetician,” a former movement. botany, and the politics of planting. parliamentarian for Civic Movement She is co-editing, with Ros Gray, a and Pirate Party in the Icelandic special issue of Third Text entitled Parliament, and a chairman for the AURÉLIE LIERMAN “The Wretched Earth: Botanical International Modern Media Institute, is a radio artist, vocalist, and Conflicts and Artistic Interventions” Reykjavik. A long-time activist, composer fascinated by the narrative (Spring 2018). Jónsdóttir specializes in twenty-first power of abstract sound and music. century lawmaking and focuses She frequently adds dramatic and on direct democracy, freedom of documentary elements to musical

JONAS STAAL Eastern European liberal network is an artist and the founder of the of institutions and activists. It artistic and political organization New organizes workshops, exhibitions, World Summit (2012–ongoing), the debates, seminars, an online New World Academy (co-founded quarterly magazine, a publishing with BAK, 2013–2016), and the New house, cultural centers in Poland, and Unions campaign (2016–ongoing). activist clubs in Germany, Poland, and Staal’s interdisciplinary work focuses Ukraine. on the relationship between art, democracy, and propaganda. He is currently completing research SAMUEL VRIEZEN on contemporary propaganda art is an -based composer at the PhD Arts program of Leiden and writer. Recently, he completed University, Leiden. Schade (Damage), a play for VPRO radio on the hidden politics of oil NEW UNIONS pollution in the Niger Delta and New Unions is an artistic campaign the temporalities of irreversibility that organizes gatherings throughout and survival. In 2016, he published the European continent to confront Netwerk in Eclips, as well as essays its current political, economic, and and poems focusing on change in a humanitarian crises. Through the networked world. He teaches artistic imaginary of art, New Unions aims to research to composers at the Royal bring together emancipatory forces Conservatoire, The Hague. from the domains of art, politics, and activisms in order to establish a new transdemocratic union. Propositions #2: Assemblism is the culmination of the 2016 collaboration between BAK and New Unions.

IGOR STOKFISZEWSKI is a researcher, activist, journalist, and artist. He is a member of the Political Critique (Krytyka Polityczna) team and DiEM25, author of Zwrot Polityczny (Political Turn) (2009), editor of Culture and Development: Beyond Neoliberal Reason (2017), and co-editor of—among other books— Build the City: Perspectives on Commons and Culture (2015).

POLITICAL CRITIQUE (KRYTYKA POLITYCZNA) Established in 2002, Political Critique is the largest Central and