Summer School 2024 – »The Lost Art of Organizing Solidarity«

About the Summer School

As the climate crisis progresses, we are currently witnessing an escalation of ‘racial capitalism’, a term introduced by Black Marxist Cedric J. Robinson in 1983, pointing at the fact that there is no such thing as capitalism without racism. The violent European border regime, as one of the most brutal examples, is not only bringing to light massive global injustices and inequalities in human rights, but also neo-colonial wars, even more extraction of planetary resources and exploitation of workers, working-class families and the poorest and most vulnerable communities on the frontlines across the globe.

Meanwhile, progressive activists, thinkers and movements are divided as hard as ever before. As we have painfully learned in the last decade, our mass mobilisations, political campaigns, and artistic actions have not changed the system so far. Sometimes, it may have even been the case that we fueled a self-fulfilling prophecy of this widespread feeling of powerlessness in civil society and the general public. Even if the belief in a revolution of human dignity and global justice would be more necessary than ever, our hope is increasingly exhausted in despair about the current state of political affairs. But a shift towards a more democratic and solidary politics, will only be possible if we face our powerlessness and suffering, and refocus our energies on building the spaces and societies of care, trust and solidarity that we strive for.

In 2024, we will face one very hard truth, as half of the world's population will vote, and most probably right-wing parties and fascist leaders and their movements will not only win in Austria and the EU but in most countries on all continents. When, if not now, is it finally time for us as organizers, educators and artists to leave activist business-as-usual behind us and to ask ourselves how we can really win, or at least fail better? Since the struggles for migrant, workers' and climate justice are a question of all or nothing. Because they are not only about the livelihoods of many of us already being threatened by the ongoing climate disasters, but about the basic right to live in dignity as workers, migrants and inhabitants of planet earth…

The Summer School under the title «The Lost Art of Organizing Solidarity« will take place from May 30 to June 2, 2024, as part of the Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna at the Volkskundemuseum Wien. European Alternatives' School of Transnational Organizing will bring together migrants and refugees, workers and their collectives as well as urban grassroots movements, feminist activists and anti-fascist groups from across Europe and from beyond the Mediterranean. 50 invited international and local community organizers, educators and artists will meet in the »Free Republic of Vienna« with interested Viennese and Austrian climate activists and citizens to learn from each others’ stories, skills and strategies on how we can unite and fight across the differences and beyond the borders of communities, struggles and nations.

Join the Summer School in Vienna from 30 May to 2 June at the Volkskundemuseum Wien!

REGISTER NOW!

If you have any specific questions or needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us at berlin@euroalter.com. In case you want to join the cultural night events organised by Wiener Festwochen | Free Public Vienna, please book tickets via the festival website.

THURSDAY, 30.05.2024

18:00 – 19:15: Get-Together, Soup & Welcome Address by Georg Blokus (School of Transnational Organizing) & Milo Rau (Wiener Festwochen & International Institute of Political Murder)

You will also have the opportunity to see the exhibition »The Archive for Ohnmacht« for the first time in Vienna, showcasing interviews with activists, artists and academics Doro Blancke, Dóra Denerak Galyas, Djif Djimeli, Nina Khyzhna, Seyda Kurt, Daria Kinga Majewski, Sónia Melo, Mirko Messner, Livinus Nwoha, Andreas Peham, Maike Plath, Norbert Prinz, Leon Ranz, Milo Rau, Rúbia Salgado, Ipek Yüksek, Csilla, Eylem, Tariq and Zeyn.

19:15 – 21:00: Film Screening: »The New Gospel« by Milo Rau (GER/SUI/ITA, 2020, 107’, English Subtitles)

What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his disciples be? And how would today’s bearers of secular and spiritual power respond to the return and provocations of the most influential prophet and social revolutionary in human history? With »The New Gospel«, Milo Rau is staging a »Revolt of Dignity«. Led by political activist Yvan Sagnet, the movement is fighting for the rights of migrants who came to Europe across the Mediterranean to be enslaved on the tomato fields in southern Italy and to live in ghettos under inhumane conditions. The director and his team return to the origins of the gospel and stage it as a passion play of an entire civilization. In Matera, in southern Italy, where the great Jesus films from Pasolini to Gibson were shot, an authentically political as well as theatrical and cinematic ‘New Gospel’ emerges for the 21st century. A manifesto of solidarity with the poorest, a revolt for a more just, humane world.

21:00 – 22:00: Film Talk with Yvan Sagnet (NO CAP, Rome), Sónia Melo (SEZONIERI, Vienna) & Katarzyna Winiecka (UNDOK, Vienna) (Moderation: Emőke Gondos)

22:00: Club of the Republic (as part of Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna)

Volkstheater, Rote Bar/Weißer Salon (Free Entrance)

 

FRIDAY, 31.05.2024

10:00 – 10:30: Opening Words by Georg Blokus & Csenge Schneider-Lonhart (School of Transnational Organizing)

 

Pt. 1: Striking Back Against the Power of Capital & Fascists

10:30 – 12:00: Short Talks by Grassroots Movement, Campaign & Community Representatives

Let’s listen and get inspired by organizers sharing their struggles and retelling the stories, victories and losses of their movements across the continent. 

12:00 – 12:30: Coffee Break

12:30 – 13:30: Skillshare Session

Let’s see what we can learn from each others’ struggles and the previously shared strategies and tactics, and how we can build more hopeful, more powerful and more joyful movements.

13:30 – 14:30: Community Lunch

 

Pt. 2: Fighting for Alternative Futures of Solidarity & Care

14:30 – 16:00: Short Talks by Grassroots Movement, Campaign & Community Representatives

16:00 – 16:30: Coffee Break

16:30 – 17:30: Skillshare Session

17:30 – 18:00: Community Reflection

Let's come together and share the lessons learned, the new insights we got and the open questions we have in the plenary.

19:30–22:45: Lacrima – Caroline Gueila Nguyen (as part of Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna)

Halle E – MuseumsQuartier

An Haute Couture house receives the unusual commission by the British princess to design a wedding dress. During eight months, various people are working on different parts of this secret project without knowing of the final product: the pattern maker in Paris, the lacemaker in Normandy and the hand embroiderer in Mumbai. With her very first work shown in Vienna, French director Caroline Guiela Nguyen tells a story of structural and private violence at hand of the creation of a royal bridal gown. It is a utopian act: while all those involved are in reality obliged to silence, their fates and dreams are being narrated on stage. Guiela Nguyen skilfully presents a touching meditation about the tears (italian lacrimas) that are concealed behind overwhelming beauty.

20:00–21:30: Medea’s Children – Milo Rau (as part of Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna)

Jugendstiltheater

Medea is considered the most notorious relationship tragedy in Greek Antiquity. The conflict culminates in Medea killing her own children, who are condemned to silence throughout the tragedy. Milo Rau turns this classic arrangement on its head in Medea’s Children: six young people between the ages of eight and thirteen speak up. Setting out from an actual crime and Medea’s multiple murder, the children reflect on the absurd and bloody tragedies of the adult world and on their own personal (tragic) realities. It is a short history of the theatre and an equally cruel as poetic school of life.

22:00: Club of the Republic (as part of Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna)

Volkstheater, Rote Bar/Weißer Salon (Free Entrance)

 

SATURDAY, 01.06.2024

On this day, all interested participants can choose from a diverse programme of full-day workshops collaboratively held by leading practitioners, grassroots organisations and training collectives from the fields of transnational movement building, community arts, popular education and transformative community organizing around migrant, workers’ and climate justice who have been matched across disciplines and borders.

Workshop A: Enabling Dreams – From Grief to Hope

Jacqueline Saki Aslan (Performance Artist, Educator & Researcher) meets Jan Niggemann (Educator & Theorist)

Departing from the fact that people dream, we ask ourselves and the group, what drives us to imagine another world, what spirits and myths accompany us? We will move the body as an archive and listen to the nonverbal while holding space for sound, whispering, music, rhythm, beauty, grief and emptiness. Perfomatively and with the use of objects we explore different ways to use and train imagination, and hope to open a process in which dreams, buried myths and silenced ideas are no counter narratives but a way of building decent and future connections within and beyond our selves. Because it’s always been hope driving resistance.

Note: Openness towards body (friendly) movement and autobiographical work in an intersectionally sensitive space regarding gender, racism and ableism is asked for.

Jacqueline Saki Aslan is a multidisciplinary artist, anti-bias trainer and speaker in the field of intersectional classism, migration and cultures of remembrance. Saki questions how unwritten, diasporic archives and their story ‘from below’ can find ways into public memory.

Jan Niggemann is a writer and teacher in adult education and curious about tensions between canon and its transformation from within and outside, through bodily experiences and the use of objects.

Workshop B: From Neoliberal Education to Counter-Hegemonic Power – Educación Popular as Resistance Praxis for Transformation By, With & For the People (German with Whisper Translation in English/Spanish)

Aquarela del Sol Padilla, Rebecca Campos & Sol Pérez Corti (Centro Educación Popular Lohana Berkins) meet Rubia Salgado & Adriana Torres Topaga (das kollektiv & Maiz – Autonomes Zentrum von und für Migrantinnen) 

Starting from a political and historical contextualization of the pedagogical practice of Educación Popular in Latin America, we move towards critical education practices of the migrant organisations leading the workshop and open up spaces for dialogue, cooperative work, imagination and reflection. We aim to explore, deepen and promote the potential of Educación Popular as a counterpoint to the economization of education and affects in neoliberal capitalism.

Note: The workshop will be held in German and English language.

Lohana Berkins Popular Education Center: We are an educational center by and for migrants in Berlin that focuses on the political-pedagogical perspectives of "Educación Popular". We create a space for the development of tools with which we can actively participate in the political life of this society.

das kollektiv is an organisation by and for migrant women* in Linz/Upper Austria; it is a place of critical educational work, of exchange, of contradiction and of collective organisation. We work i.a. in the field of adult education with migrant and refugee women* who have the least privilege. We also provide education and trainings for teachers, also migrant and refugee women*. Since 2015, das kollektiv has been carrying out the educational work that began in the 1990s in maiz.

maiz - Autonomes Zentrum von und für Migrantinnen is an independent association of and for migrant women* in Linz/Upper Austria with the aim to improve the living and working situation of migrants in Austria and to promote their political and cultural participation as well as to bring about a change in existing, unjust social conditions.

Adriana Torres Topaga: Artist, designer and facilitator. In my artistic practice I pursue socio-ecological reflection and transformation, interdisciplinary interaction and collective creation.

Workshop C: Fighting for Belonging – How to Tell Stories and Build Campaigns for Migrant Justice Shifting the Political Landscape

Sujin J. Noël & Masha Burina (Leading Change Network) meet Christina Antonakos-Wallace, Olga Gerstenberger, Miman Jasarovski & Tania Mattos (With Wings & Roots)

Explore the power of storytelling in activism: Understand how narratives build individual and collective power and learn to tell compelling stories of Self, Us, and Now to counter anti-migrant rhetoric and build movements for belonging. We will share frameworks from the Leading Change Network and experiences With Wings and Roots in cultural organizing, filmmaking and campaigns for migrant and racial justice. Through presentations, group discussions, and practical exercises, discover storytelling techniques that foster alliances and build power in this urgent political moment.

Christina Antonakos-Wallace is a cultural organizer and initiator of WIth Wings and Roots. Her award-winning films and new media work has been exhibited in twenty countries on four continents. A lifelong activist for social and economic justice, she tells stories that aim to illuminate our inherent belonging and build power for social justice and transformation.

Masha Burina is a Berlin-based social movement organizer and educator, who grew up in the U.S., and was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She believes in centering our work by first witnessing our shared humanity; this is the work of storytelling & public narrative. She fell in love with community organizing as a practice of building people power towards liberation in movement w/fast food workers for a union and better wage, youth for truth & reconciliation in the Balkans, bus/subway riders in NYC, Berliners for refugee rights, & Seattle communities for trade justice. She works for the Leading Change Network & ECON.

Olga Gerstenberger is a political scientist, Impact Producer of FROM HERE and Managing Director of With Wings and Roots in Germany. She holds a DAAD-funded M.A. in "Ideology and Discourse Analysis" from the University of Essex and was a research fellow at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences. Olga's research and political activism focus on migration, racism, and the history of anti-racist and migrant movements.

Miman Jasarovski is an activist who has worked for many years in the right to stay movement for Roma and as a social worker for refugees. He is one of the protagonists of the documentary FROM HERE and initiated together with other activists of the initiative with WINGS and ROOTS the campaign "Pass(t) uns allen" for just citizenship, naturalization and voting rights for all in Germany. He is a board member of With Wings and Roots in Germany.

Tania Mattos is an Aymara descendant, Bolivian-born, Queens, NY-based organizer, activist, and policy advocate with over 13 years of experience. She is a founding member of the Abolish ICE NY NJ Coalition which was started in 2018 to support ongoing organizing to end ICE detention in both states. Tania is also a founder member of Queens Neighborhoods United, a grassroots anti-gentrification collective that fights against gentrification, police abuse, and ICE in Jackson Heights, Corona, and Elmhurst, Queens.

Sujin J. Noël is a Berlin-based coach and consultant. She works with teams in developing their strategy and culture, and supports BIPoC activists in developing their leadership. Her global tribe is the Leading Change Network, and her local one is @radikaletoechter. Ask her about: Public Narrative, Weaving community, Listening. Tell her about: Unconventional, sustainable ways of creating connection and belonging. And where she can get coffee.

The Leading Change Network (LCN) is a membership-based organization that focuses on supporting and building leadership capacity for effective community organizing through advancing the framework, giving access to knowledge, coaching campaigns, workshops, support seeding hubs globally, and by convening a community of practice. Our members are organizations, leaders, organizers, researchers, educators, practitioners and institutions from 75 different countries who consolidate, grow and sustain our people power for a more just, democratic, and sustainable world.

With Wings and Roots is a multidisciplinary initiative of media makers, activists, scholars, educators, and cultural organizers working in the US and Europe. We work together to reframe migration debates and advocate for just migration policies through storytelling, community organizing, and creative interventions.

Workshop D: On Rivers, Tears, and the Revolutionary Art of Connection – Catalyzing Collective Imagination and Action in Urban Neighborhoods and Rural Communities of Workers

Alicja Rogalska (Community Artist & Researcher) meets Cecylia Malik (Performer, Educator & Activist)

Further information about the workshop and the facilitators will be published soon…

Workshop E: Towards Ecological Syndicalism! – New Labour Organizing Pathways to Care for Ourselves & the Earth

Jana Ahlers, Bue Rübner Hansen & Manuela Zechner (Common Ecologies) meet different Eco-Workers’ Collectives from across Europe

Across the world, millions of workers are asked to do harm to the planet, environments, and bodies as a part of their job. And at the same time, other workers are asked to care for the tired, and to mend the broken, under exploitative, backbreaking conditions. This workshop is about how we can transform the ways we work and care, learning from different ecological, feminist and anti-racist syndicalist struggles. Asking how we might work and care as we'd like to, this workshop is focused around two organizing toolkits from the domains of care and agriculture ('Biosyndicalism from Below' by Territorio Doméstico and 'Transforming Agriculture and Beyond' by Common Ecologies), with inputs from different collectives. We center on the concepts of ecosyndicalism, ecounionism and biosyndicalism, and investigate how to build alliances between industrial, agricultural and care workers as well as broader movements for eco-social and climate justice. We discuss our own roles as workers in different sectors: how do we challenge our investments and dependencies on work, and work to transform labour? How might we shift production in a sustainable direction, from autoparts to cargobikes and solar panels, to agriculture and care work?

Jana Ahlers, climate justice activist, facilitator and member of Common Ecologies, working for European Alternatives and the School of Transnational Organizing.

Bue Rübner Hansen is a researcher, writer, and educator, and a member of the movement school Common Ecologies. He is interested in practices and theories of socio-ecological interest formation and movement strategy, and currently works at the University of Copenhagen, where he is writing a book about batshit jobs - the jobs where workers must undermine the conditions of life to make a living.

Manuela Zechner is a researcher, facilitator and educator, working the connections between care, ecology and different community organizing processes. She's part of the Common Ecologies school, as well as postdoc at the Centre for Applied Ecological Thinking at Copenhagen University, and builds the Future Archive since 2005. Ally to various feminist anti-racist organizing processes in care and agriculture, as well as eco-social education work. In 2021, she published 'Commoning Care and Collective Power' (Transversal Texts).

10:00 – 12:00: Workshop Labs Pt. 1

12:00 – 12:30: Coffee Break

12:30 – 13:30: Workshop Labs Pt. 2

13:30 – 14:30: Community Lunch

14:30 – 16:30: Workshop Labs Pt. 3

16:30 – 17:00: Coffee Break

17:00 – 18:00: Community Presentation

Let's come together and share the experiences, reflections and tools from the workshops in the plenary.

19:00 – 21:15: Hamlet – Christiane Jatahy (French & Portuguese with German & English Subtitles) (as part of Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna)

Volkstheater

It is the year 2024, in a contemporary apartment in an anonymous city. Hamlet is trying to turn sheer thought and desire into action, to move from gloom to passion – possibly even rebellion. Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy (she was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale) turns her attention to Shakespeare’s most famous phrase: to be or not to be. However, she asks a more radical question: to act or to resign? Hamlet wakes up as a woman in the contemporary world and has to face the violence of the patriarchy. Equipped with a camera, Hamlet, her mother Gertrude and her fiancée Ophelia investigate the past and the present. They want to create the society of the future. What, though, are the levers for change?

22:00: Club of the Republic (as part of Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic Vienna)

Volkstheater, Rote Bar/Weißer Salon (Free Entrance)

 

SUNDAY, 02.06.2024

10:00 – 13:00: Participant-Led Open Space Sessions »What Comes After… the Next…«

On the last day, we invite all participants to take a lead on their own open space session proposals and discuss open questions, share further skills and tools, or plan projects, campaigns and actions for the future. Here's one example of a session that will be offered:

Exploring Unlikely Partnerships – A Collective Ideation and Creative Project Design Space

The intention of this workshop is to create an open space to collectively imagine new projects, transcending disciplines and geographies. We’ll anchor our work on open calls for proposals by institutional donors. We’ll get to understand the work of each participant through a lens of identifying seeds of (unlikely) collaborations. We’ll work collectively, learn from each other, and leave the room with the intention of exploring collaborations that can practically materialise in the near future.

Pan (he/they) collaborates with non profit organisations in designing projects and processes, and sometimes facilitates their implementation. In the past 8 years they’ve collaborated with more than 70 organisations in Germany, Greece, France, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo, N. Macedonia, Turkey, and the UK. Coming from a design background, they strive to employ collaborative and iterative methodologies in imagining new projects.

13:00 – 18:00: Farewell Lunch & Street Festival by Klima Biennale Wien

Before we all head back home across the continent, we will come together for closing words and a  farewell lunch at the street festival organised by the Klima Biennale Wien right across the Volkskundemuseum Wien.

Final Tip: The exhibition »Genossin Sonne – Inke Arns und Andrea Popelka« is open for public from Tuesday to Sunday (11:00–19:00) and on Thursdays (11:00–21:00) at Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier. Tickets can be purchased on site.