ORGANIZING EMANCIPATION
How do you organize social change? And how does a political movement come into being? Is it prompted by a shared experience of injustice, by the insurrection against it—or must any such rebellion be preceded by a “revolution in the heads” (Karl Marx) in which the would-be insurgents become conscious of their collective identity (as, say, the working class)? Does everything begin with the group’s understanding of itself, or is that understanding forged in the shared struggle? And what if that struggle is in turn sparked precisely by the “violently constructed nature of collective identities” (Jens Kastner and Lea Susemichel)?
With: Samuel Mago, Vivaro (Žaklina Radosavljević, Lavinia Seidel) and Lea Susemichel
Samuel Mago, writer, Roma activist, founding member and vice president of HÖR.
Žaklina Radosavljević, education scientist, activist, founder and chairwoman of Vivaro – Viva Romnja* / Association Roma Women*.
Lavinia Seidel, activist*, student of philosophy and nationalism studies, vice chairwoman* of Vivaro – Viva Romnja* / Association Roma Women*.
Lea Susemichel (pre-recorded video input), editor of feminist magazine an.schläge and co-author of Identitätspolitiken: Konzepte und Kritiken in Geschichte und Gegenwart der Linken [Identity Politics: Concepts and Critiques in the History and Present of the Left] (Unrast Verlag 2020).
Each workshop afternoon centers on a thematic chapter of the exhibition. We develop questions and discover new perspectives to answer them in an exchange with our guests.
Following a suggestion by the Soviet writer Sergei Tretyakov, the workshop series LET’S BE REALISTIC! is an invitation to try out whether and how utopias of social justice can be developed based on joint writing, narration, and discussion of biographies of things. The objects, archival images, and partly fictional artworks shown in the exhibition Averklub Collective. Manuš Means Human provide the starting point for the project. The show tells a special story about the history of the Romani people in real socialism. What does it mean when we include local readings as well as objects and stories of the participants into this visual essay?
Please register at besucherservice@kunsthallewien.at. Both participation in the workshop and entrance to the exhibition are free.
Language(s): German (and English, French, Romani, Romanian, Hungarian, … as needed).