Since 2015 Sea-Watch has been patrolling the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, rescuing persons in distress whom capitalist policy makers prefer dead to reaching the coasts of Europe. The organization’s current ship, Sea-Watch 3, has a crew of 22, changing every three weeks almost entirely.
The talk examines Sea-Watch’s role in and resistance to an ever-changing, murderous state of exception, imposed by European states onto people attempting to cross their fluid southern borders undocumentedly. In conversation with Pirate Care Chris Grodotzki and Morana Miljanović will look specifically into social structures and dynamics that have emerged among the crew of the ship over time, radiating from care for the ship, care for the rescuees, and care for each other: “Our analysis takes on the concept of ‘Pirate Care’ to focus on care that goes beyond and against what a crew of a non-pirate ship would practice. Based on interviews with several activists who have participated in many missions over the last five years, and our own experience as crew members, we seek to trace patterns of care-full behaviors, both transient and codified, and we look at them as functional (facilitating successful rescues) as well as symbolic behaviors (being the world rescuees want to find on the safe side) that creates an alternative to what state institutions allow.”
Sea-Watch e.V. is a non-profit organization that conducts civil search and rescue (SAR) operations in the Central Mediterranean Sea. In the presence of a perpetual, state-imposed humanitarian crisis, Sea-Watch provides direly needed emergency relief, pushes for rescue operations by European institutions and publicly stands up for safe and legal escape routes (#SafePassage), freedom of movement, and open European societies with solidarity at their core. Sea-Watch is politically and religiously independent and financed solely through donations.
No registration fee
All sessions will be held in English and conducted via Zoom – please use this link or this Meeting-ID: 830 6441 6335.
The indicated time is Central European Time (CET), Vienna.
We kindly ask you to announce your participation by writing an e-mail to: rsvp@kunsthallewien.at
Please note that sessions might be (partially) recorded and published online for documentation purposes by Kunsthalle Wien and the artists.
The talk is part of a series of online talks and workshops with practitioners of Pirate Care within the exhibition … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace.
Pirate Care is mapping collective practices that are emerging in response to the various aspects of the neoliberal crisis of care, ranging from the criminalization of migration to the rollback of reproductive rights or the introduction of workfare regimes. They help migrants survive at sea and land, provide pregnancy terminations where they are illegal, offer health support where institutions fail, liberate knowledge where access is denied. They collectivize care labor in imaginative ways. What these initiatives share is often the willingness to disobey laws and executive orders, whenever these stand in the way of safety and solidarity.
Originally the workshops were planned as activations in the course of a collective learning process around the situated knowledge of these practices and a jointly written syllabus, of which a first work-in-progress edition was launched on March 8, 2020 – on the occasion of the opening of … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace at Kunsthalle Wien. Now, with the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the public activations have to be shifted to the digital space. Additionally, a collective note-taking effort was initiated to document the organizing of care and solidarity in response to the crisis.
You can find the Pirate Care Syllabus here, the topic “Flatten the Curve, Grow the Care: What are we learning from Covid-19” is accessible here.
Further dates:
14/5 2020, 7 pm–8 pm | Talk: Pirate Care – with Valeria Graziano, Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak
15/5 2020, 5 pm–7 pm | Workshop: Open Source Estrogen – with Mary Maggic
22/5 2020, 5 pm–7:30 pm (including a break) | Workshop: The Hologram. Collective Health as a “Beautiful Art Work” – with Cassie Thornton