psp.10.screenshot_20240404_123902.webp
Third Assembly

After the Assembly

Author(s)
Jonas Staal, Kate Shea Baird, Havin Güneşer, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, KUCHENGA

The gathering Third Assembly: After the Assembly took place as part of the daylong program Propositions #2: Assemblism, convened by BAK and artist Jonas Staal on 27 November 2017.

Bridging the tactics, goals, and challenges of autonomous and activist movements in Northern and Western Kurdistan, Catalonia and Spain, Iceland, and across several borders within the African diasporic struggle, this deeply engaging discussion responded to the prompt, “How is power taken and practiced differently after the moment of assembly?”

After the Assembly brought together Kate Shea Baird of Barcelona En Comú, Havin Güneşer of Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan—Peace in Kurdistan, Birgitta Jónsdóttir of the Icelandic Pirate Party, and KUCHENGA of Black Lives Matter UK to debate long-term strategies and struggles of autonomous organizing, from dealing with consensus and collectivized motivations to articulating intersectional and pluralist demands and addressing concerns about institutionalization and government intervention. As a retroactive response to the question of the focus “How to Assemble Now,” the conversation offers a set of critical strategies and observations on how to move from assembly to lasting change.


Related
psp.18.screenshot_20240404_123315.webp
11 June 2021
Schooling Assembly

“Schooling Assembly” by Nora N. Khan traverses a year of pandemic teaching, in which faculty and students have witnessed widening cracks in the university system and its human opportunity cost calculations, and have faced new challenges in asserting creative and collective autonomies.

Photograph by Extinction Rebellion
Photograph by Extinction Rebellion
7 December 2020
Rebellion Looks Inwards: Organizing in the midst of Extinction

Extinction Rebellion (XR) entered the spotlight in late 2018 with a call for mass disruptions, followed by a first wave of actions which saw thousands come together to block major bridges in London.

Jeanne van Heeswijk, Freehouse Radicaliz
Jeanne van Heeswijk, Freehouse Radicalizing the Local, 2008–2019
8 July 2020
Freehouse Radicalizing the Local

This diagram by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk depicts the story of Freehouse Radicalizing the Local, a project focusing on the struggle for the right to live well in the Afrikaanderwijk neighborhood of Rotterdam.

psp.10.screenshot_20240404_123902.webp
8 July 2020
Third Assembly

The gathering Third Assembly: After the Assembly took place as part of the daylong program Propositions #2: Assemblism, convened by BAK and artist Jonas Staal on 27 November 2017.

psp.11.screenshot_20240404_123957.webp
8 July 2020
To Live the Coming Death

From: Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent, Maria Hlavajova and Wietske Maas, eds. (Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019), pp. 165-179

psp.12.modesofassemblyartthepeopleandthestate.webp
8 July 2020
Modes of Assembly: Art, the People, and the State

From: FORMER WEST: Art and the Contemporary After 1989, Maria Hlavajova and Simon Sheikh, eds. (Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), pp. 559-569

“If you feel despair, remember this cr
“If you feel despair, remember this crowd"
8 July 2020
Remembering the Crowd

"We were in the streets for the Feminist Night March on 8 March, exactly three days before the first Covid-19 case was officially declared in Turkey..." Read the translation of an essay originally published in Turkish on 1+1 Forum, 30.04.2020.