During the ON MOBILISATION project (2023-2025) a collective journey, exploring the potential of transnational cooperation as a way to actively participate in an international solidarity and emancipatory movement, began.
wpZimmer, in collaboration with Out of Sight, is hosting the final ON MOBILISATION Symposium on Thursday, February 27, bringing together artists, thinkers, and collaborators to explore the themes and outcomes of the project, offering a space for reflection, discussion, and exchange in the form of workshops, performances, sharing meals and stories, working together towards better future for all of us.
Within the ON MOBILISATION cooperation project (2023-2025) processes of micro-community mobilisation, led by six artists: Danae Theodoridou, Ahilan Ratnamohan, Marika Smreková, Kalle Brolin, Elisabetta Consonni and Daniele Ninarello, facilitated by the partner organisations: wpZimmer (Antwerp), Baltic Art Center (Gotland), Studio ALTA (Prague) and Lavanderia a Vapore (Turin), together with two associated partners, ARIA (Antwerp) and GRASS (Gotland) began.
Geopolitical rapid changes have been asking from us to become more sensitive to mobilisation of micro-communities, while keep bringing up questions such as why, how and with whom these processes are happening today. The ON MOBILISATION project is interested in connecting to micro-communities that are emerging in order to reject, refuse and rise against violence and oppression. Micro-communities that grow into transnational alliances. Because we know that nobody is free, until everybody is free!
Symposium is FREE. Participatory performances, workshops, shared meals need to be RSVP through the online FORM, due to the limited number of places and to avoid food waste.
:: SYMPOSIUM PROGRAMME ::
9:00-11:00
RISING UP with de Kompaan
Welcome to the neighbourhood bakery where we make bread together!
De Kompaan’s Neighbourhood Bakery is for this day moving to wpZimmer. Together we will prepare a new batch of dough (measuring, mixing, rising, shaping, resting) that will be baked on Friday and shared with the community. The Neighbourhood Bakery is full of surprises and is open to everyone. You go home with new experience, knowledge and a (piece of) bread. The most important thing is the pleasure of sharing knowledge and connection in society. That is what de Kompaan stands for!
* Vegetarian & vegan breakfast provided / RSVP to be able to provide food for everyone.
11:00-12:00
PARENT-FRIENDLY CULTURE with Marika Smreková and Petr Dlouhý
Workshop and storytelling about Inclusive Mobilisation
PARENT-FRIENDLY CULTURE is a self-transformative process of Studio ALTA (Prague) toward a more inclusive environment of cultural institutions for parents or guardians and children. Within the workshop, Marika and Petr navigate the participants through the landscapes of their research, sharing their perspectives on the need to consider accessibility tools for parents and guardians, practical hints on how to break the barrier that prevents many from being part of cultural life and address the benefits of holding spaces for all the adults and kids.
* The session is aimed for people working in culture, accessibility managers, parents and guardians who lost their touch with cultural life as well as people who are keen to explore the possibilities of multigenerational spaces.
** Kids of all ages are warmly invited to be part of the session.
12:30-13:30
LUNCH BOX IN A PAPERBACK with Kalle Brolin and Ana Kutleša
Storytelling about artistic and political practices
During the ON MOBILISATION project, artist Kalle Brolin, together with the Baltic Art Center in Visby, has worked for two years on the image of the peace movement in Gotland. The work began with visits and conversations with people from Gotland who could be included in a broad definition of what constitutes a peace movement.
Ana Kutleša is a curator and researcher and occasionally works as an independent writer in the field of art, culture, and short fiction. Since 2009, she has been part of the curatorial collective BLOK in Zagreb, dedicated to socially engaged art practices. In 2019, she co-initiated BLOK’s long-term project “Trešnjevka Neighbourhood Museum”.
Together, Kalle and Ana will share their stories about the writing of their choice, intertwining fictional and non-fictional readings of the text, followed by the conversation with the audience.
* Vegan lunch included. RSVP to be able to provide food for everyone.
14:00-15:45
HOW TO BECOME A PLATYPUS by Elisabetta Consonni
Participatory performance
“When this animal was discovered in the late 18th century, a skin was sent to Britain for examination by the scientific community. At first, scientists were convinced that the at first sight bizarre set of physical features must have been a fake, produced by some embalming process. Instead, it was the platypus.” (Wikipedia)
HOW TO BECOME A PLATYPUS is a constellation of playful practices and exercises. The audience enters the environment with several stations, following a dramaturgical score – a set of directions that differs for each participant and is divided into sequences. Each person joins different constellations of people while engaging in a plausible negotiation of meanings. The stations invite a derailment from logic; they are, rather, pleasant impossible missions that intercept personal aspects of knowledge while avoiding functionality. In the vertigo of not knowing, possibilities open up and worlds are created: even the platypus becomes possible.
* Limited number of participants, please RSVP
14:00-15:45
SILENT PROTEST — CALL FOR ACTION with Daniele Ninarello
Workshop leading towards public performance during dinner
You are invited to participate in a free workshop led by choreographer and dancer Daniele Ninarello. During the ON MOBILISATION project, Daniele, in collaboration with Lavanderia a Vapore, has been working with different groups of citizens, primarily young adults, collectively investigating the memories and traces left on the body by the culture of control, bullying, toxic masculinity, violence, and offence. SILENT PROTEST explores the correlation between spoken/written word and the “protest body”. At the end of the workshop, the group will be guided in creating a collective protest in the form of a flash mob, which will be performed in the evening for the audience.
* A volunteer fee is provided for the participants.
** No previous experience is required. The workshop will take place in a safe environment facilitated by the artist. You should have a desire to get to know other groups of citizens, to share the desire to mobilise, and feel comfortable to perform in front of the audience.
*** Limited number of participants, please RSVP
16:00-16:45
MOBILISING WORDS
On Mobilisation publication launch
MOBILISING WORDS is the publication developed as part of the ON MOBILISATION project (2023-2025). Mobilising Words is a card game that uses the “On Mobilisation Vocabulary”, a collection of words gathered as testimonies from the process of researching, facilitating, mobilising and learning from local communities in Antwerp, Gotland, Prague and Turin. Is it possible to play with the shared experience of how words and their meanings can change through a collective process? Mobilising Words is an attempt to open up the Vocabulary’s potential by contemplating definitions and arriving at unexpected interpretations. Join us for the afternoon game!
17:00-18:45
THE PRACTICE OF DEMOCRACY — THE ADVERSARIES by Danae Theodoridou
Participatory performance
THE ADVERSARIES is a participatory performance installation. Two small groups are brought into conflict with each other in a playful manner. A third group, the witnesses, follows the discussion and shares its perspective on the conflict. This allows the participants to think about conflict as a vital part of democracy. Following different instructions, participants explore and negotiate on an existing conflict in ways that play up the possibilities and limitations of this practice. Together they try to create a new, third space based on a synthesis of the different points of view.
* Limited number of participants, please RSVP
17:00-18:45
THE INSTITUTE FOR ANARCHIC AND ARTISTIC LANGUAGE LEARNING by Ahilan Ratnamohan
Lecture-performance
Ahilan Ratnamohan is an artist, but also an obsessive language learner, busy with a number of languages on a daily basis. In his work he researches language learning as a form of performance. During the ON MOBILISATION project, THE INSTITUTE FOR ANARCHIC AND ARTISTIC LANGUAGE LEARNING was created to make alternative and under-valued language-learning techniques and tactics more accessible. At the same time, The Institute raises questions in regards to language-learning pedagogy and what gets validated as such.
Are you a language student, language teacher or a language enthusiast, interpreter, translator and intercultural mediator, or are simply curious about language philosophy and pedagogy? Then we welcome you to The Institute!
* Limited number of participants, please RSVP
19:30-21:00
DINNER AND STORYTELLING
> SILENT PROTEST with Daniele Ninarello, performed by the participants of the afternoon workshop
> ISLAND STORIES ON PEACE AND WAR with Anamarija Batista (MOZARTEUM)
The sound of waves blends with the scent of pine trees, and the echoes of military boots merge with the voices of tourists from hotel terraces.
The art-based research project Collective Utopias of Post-War Modernism: The Adriatic Coast as a Leisure and Defence Paradise led by Anamarija Batista and Antonia Dika examines the phenomena of military and tourist urbanisation, as well as their impact on the Adriatic coast and the local population’s way of life.
> DEMANDING JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY with Milutin Milošević (Faculty of dramatic Arts, Film director master studies, Belgrade), one of the students of the ongoing student protests in Serbia
We are hundreds of thousands of young people from Serbia, united by grief and a desire for justice.
Serbian students represent the voice of a society demanding change after an unprecedented tragedy. On November 1st, 2024, fifteen lives were lost when a canopy collapsed at a newly renovated train station in Novi Sad, a consequence of negligence and systemic corruption. No one has yet been held accountable for these deaths. After a violent attack on students and professors at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade during a commemoration for the victims, we decided to speak up. A wave of uprisings spread across Serbia, with over 60 faculties in full blockade. Our goals have been clear from day one – justice for the victims, sanctioning those responsible for the violence, and a society where human rights are guaranteed.
We’ve witnessed the power of unconditional love from countless people, reminding us that unity is key to progress. At the same time, the outrage we feel resonates across Serbia, proving that this is not a moment, but a movement. What you see in us is a generation refusing to yield to a broken system. Together, we are building a future where accountability is the rule, not the exception. We are the voices of change.
* Limited number of seats, please RSVP
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To make this day enjoyable, we provide:
> Free babysitting for kids from 2 to 6 years old from 11:00-19:00 / RSVP
> Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Bar opens at 16:00. It’s based on a pay-what-you-can principle (please bring cash). Coffee, tea, and water are free and available all day / RSVP
> There is a quiet prayer room with a praying mat, available for prayer all day.
> We’ve prepared a calm space, where you can find rest and peace during the full-day event. It is suitable for breastfeeding, if you or your baby prefer a calm space.
> The programme is in English, however we hope that together we can find a way to offer personal (whispering 🙂 translation when needed.
Here you can find more info about the ON MOBILISATION project.
