This episode celebrates 10+ years of domestic workers organizing and campaigning in Spain, where congress finally approved legislation that grants domestic workers equal rights to other workers. Listen to the stories of Territorio Doméstico and Mujeres Unidas entre Tierras, two powerful collectives that have not just campaigned, but developed an incredible toolbox of mutual support, care, networking, migrant solidarity and celebration.
During ongoing protests in 2014 that escalated in a burning governance building for the first time I took part in interdisciplinary collaborations among different artistic disciplines mostly in public spaces. Thereby I experienced how art can be a tool for expressing resistance and solidarity while recipients are not a middle-class audience who pay tickets, actually this time the gaining ones of the artistic contribution have been the very people who have been addressed in the art piece itself, in this example: the unpaid workers which protested on the streets in front of the parliament in Sarajevo BiH 2014.
A Marseille, les premiers collages ont incité un groupe d’ami.es à créer leur propre mouvement de collage en septembre 2019 sur le principe de l’intersectionnalité. Nous sommes un collectif sans chef.fe et sans hiérarchie. Lorsque l’un.e de nous a une idée de phrase, on la propose au collectif qui la valide ou non.
L’intérêt de ce moyen d’action se trouve aussi dans la large audience qu’il peut toucher. La rue étant un lieu public, nos messages sont vus par des gens de classes sociales, de genres et d’âges différents ; ils peuvent atteindre tout le monde. De la femme victime de violence qui y trouve du soutien au vieux monsieur retraité qui ne comprend rien au féminisme et que notre message va peut-être faire réfléchir, nous nous trouvons face à toutes sortes de réactions.
During the communist era in Poland, art was part of the socialist party’s propaganda and free art was censored. However, artists created politically engaged art, openly provoking or hiding ‘politically incorrect’ content between the lines. The political role of art is very much needed again today. As an artist, I have always addressed political, social and religious themes in my work. Since I have become involved in activism, I am practically still doing the same thing – engaged art, only that it is shown on the street, seen by crowds and not by a narrow circle of people interested in art. As an artist, I see this as a challenge to myself and my work, to seek a definition of art.
In this episode we speak to Andrea Ghelfi from the Italian food sovereignty network Genuino Clandestino. What does the Italian peasant movement have to do with urban social centres and migration struggles? Why do peasants insist on selling “genuine, but clandestine food” in Italy, and what does it mean to reinvent rural life and the peasantry as a community of practice?
Zum 3. Oktober 2021 unternimmt das Weimarer Bürgerradio “Radio Lotte” einen Streifzug durch Weimar und erkundet die Veränderungen in der Stadt nach der Pandemie. Georg Gräser besucht in seinem Magazin Sozialarbeiter*innen, Goldschmied*innen, Kleingärtner*innen, die Weimarer Fridays for Future und viele weitere Menschen und Initiativen, die ein aktives Leben in der Stadt auszeichnen. Die gegenwärtige Stimmung in der Stadt wird mit Stimmen unmittelbar nach der Wiedervereinigung collagiert. Für das Magazin wurde auch das Forschungsprojekt MovE gefragt, wie soziale Bewegungen die Pandemie erlebt haben.
READ MORE Tage der Wiedereröffnung: Weimar und die Normalität
The pandemic, like other unfolding and coming ecological crises, profoundly reshapes the terrain upon which social movements operate and emerge. We held a workshop in order to discuss different terrains of struggle over housing, reproductive rights, and ecology. Here we are allocating recordings of the talks and of the discussion on May 21st as well as further reflections on the workshop on May 22nd.
READ MORE Documentation: Learning and Struggling in Pandemic times
Commentary on the workshop “Learning and Struggling in Pandemic Times”.
Time and space seemed to have become somewhat warped since the beginning of the pandemic. Personally, I often get struck by a feeling of paralysis when I think about our collective struggles and organizing efforts during the pandemic, almost like being frozen in time and waiting for things to change from the outside. This newly learned and shared pandemic vulnerability meant for most of us to reduce our real life encounters and therefore find new ways to connect, meet and organize…
READ MORE Workshops and movement learning spaces in Pandemic Times
Due to Turkey’s official withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention on July 1st, we invited three activists to discuss the consequences of the recent developments in Turkey and beyond. During the discussion Özlem Kaya from UnitedforIstanbulConvention gave a run down of the recent events in Turkey. Kalina Drenska from E.A.S.T. Network and FemBunt, talked about the situation of LGBTQI+ communities in Bulgaria. Furthermore, Natassa Diamanti from the 8th of March Assembly Athens talked about the situation in Greece as well as the current discussion regarding femicides. Elif Artan from DaMigra reflected upon the positioning of Germany and other EU-States after Turkeys withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention.
READ MORE Panel Discussion “The Istanbul Convention is ours”
Syriza took power through elections—not so much on the basis of a movement that could embolden or depose it. Now it is back to fighting power for many Greeks. But beyond the taking and fighting of power, there is the question of building power.