“No One Is An Island”

Teil I/ Part I:

Field study in the framework of the Summer School “Experiences of Interdependence” (Istituto Svizzero, September 2023). Organized in collaboration with Sara Alberani, independent curator and member of the network Mediterranea - Saving Humans, which carries out sea rescues and organizes various support structures for migrants.

https://www.istitutosvizzero.it/summer-schools/experiences-of-interdependence/

Participants: Noel Hochuli, Nic Hösli, Marc Kämpfen, Rada Leu, Francisca Patrocinio, Laura von Niederhäusern, Selina Zürrer (ZHdK); Esther Kempf (independent artist, Zurich); Gregor Neuerer, Elka Krajewska, Elke Zobl (University Mozarteum Salzburg)

Teil II/ Part II:

Two-days event «No one is an island: A gathering around joining forces in view of an uncertain future” at the Istituto Svizzero in Rome, November 2023. Organized in collaboration with Sara Alberani and Gioia Dal Molin.

With contributions by Charles Heller, director of the Border Forensics research and investigation agency; political philosopher and activist Giorgio Grappi; Chiara Denaro, researcher at Liminal, University of Bologna; Mahamat Daoud Abderasoul, activist with the Refugees in Libya movement; Noor Abed, independent artist (Amsterdam, Ramallah); Veronica Pecile, socio-legal researcher, University of Lucerne;  Ultima Generazione, activist collective that carries out non-violent civil disobedience actions (Rome).

https://www.istitutosvizzero.it/de/talk/no-one-is-an-island/

“Experiences of Interdependence” (part I)

The situation of migrants trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean affects us all, but in a context like Zurich it seems very distant. How can art relate to this reality? - This question was one of the starting points of the Summer School which started half a year before the stay in Rome. The group of twelve participants met regularly to plan the joint field research. In the preparation process, the original focus on migration across the Mediterranean opened up to fundamental questions: What social urgencies are currently at the center of attention in Rome, and how are they being addressed by activist groups? What spaces for action are created when art meets activism and social engagement?

The group agreed on a dense program of encounters with self-organized structures and activist circles in Rome that work in various ways for social justice, for measures against the climate crisis, and for resilience in marginalized social contexts. The question of how the outcome of these encounters could ultimately be translated into a final event at the Istituto Svizzero was a recurring one - a question the group decided to leave open for as long as possible.

The notion of dialogue, which is often used in the context of art engaging with social urgencies or activist practices, led to controversial discussions in the group. To think in terms of dialogue can imply that art and activism are separate entities. The group countered this by arguing that, in the context of social urgencies, it was precisely not a matter of thinking in terms of demarcations and profiling one's own position. Rather, the focus should be on overarching interests and approaches that can promote social change.

This attitude set the tone for the Summer School. Each day, different contexts and people in Rome were visited and spaces for thinking were explored together. One of the focus points was Spin Time, an area in the city center that has been squatted for ten years and is now home to about 150 mostly migrant families who have no access to the housing market in Rome. Spin Time is a self-organized microcosm. There are contact points, infrastructure for cultural production and a "museum of hospitality". According to the museum’s founding member Giulia Fiocca, the goal of Spin Time is to be "too big to evict.  To this end, they have at times even joined forces with the Vatican, which allowed a symbolic occupation of St. Peter's Cathedral to raise awareness of homelessness in Rome.

The meeting with Alexandra Lopez, a member of the Feel Good Cooperative founded in 2020, also revolved around the principles of visibility and mutual support. This is an association of transsexual sex workers who, together with artist Pauline Curnier Jardin, initiated a space during the first lockdown where sex workers can come together, exchange ideas and express themselves artistically. Like the initiators of Spin Time, Lopez is convinced: “No one can save themselves alone.”

The emphasis on community and coming together was a recurring theme of the summer school. And it wasn't just about people. Artist and activist Andrea Conte, for example, took a tour of his various projects, introducing participants to practices of building relationships with non-human actors - in his case, in particular with rivers and supposed weeds in Rome.

Through the individual encounters, the Summer School group came up with shared references that led to the ideas for the final public event at ISR. In collaboration with Barikamà, a social cooperative of former plantation workers from West Africa, a snack bar was planned in the ISR park. To design the buffet, some group members took inspiration from environmental activists/artists and used natural resources to dye fabrics on which central slogans from the summer school encounters were embroidered. Other participants produced a zine in which important statements from the week were collaged.

The event was opened with a speech by Barikamà, after which all Summer School participants made toasts to the issues and groups of people they had encountered. These inputs formed the basis for engaging in conversation with the visitors. It was mainly a typical art world audience who knew little about the activist circles in Rome that come into play where the state does not intervene. In a certain sense, the Summer School hijacked the framework of the art (institution) with the event in order to strengthen precisely this awareness of social urgencies and the possibilities of confronting them.

No one is an island: A gathering around joining forces in view of an uncertain future (part II)

The event “No One Is An Island” was based on the findings of the Summer School. It took place at the Istituto Svizzero when the exhibition “Poetry for Revolutions» (curated by Gioia Dal Molin) had opened. The exhibition brought together artists that interrogate the role of art and its position in view of sociopolitical and environmental crises. “No One Is an Island” followed up on these strands of thought and invited to discuss concrete approaches to taking action.

The event revolved around realities of migration, climate collapse, and vulnerable territories and communities. The urgencies posed by these realities call for action and solidarity, and they challenge us to overcome an intellectual and institutional culture which separates research and theory from practices, and struggles to support grassroots and self-organized transformative processes. How can we join forces instead? What approaches can we share and develop to face a future that otherwise leaves little space for hope?  

Charles Heller, director of the Border Forensics research and investigation agency, introduced the critical forensic practice he and his colleagues have sought to lead over the last years in the aim of documenting and contesting the changing modalities of border violence across the Europe’s multifarious borders, with a particular focus on the Mediterranean Sea. Reflecting upon Border Forensics’s practice and that of other actors engaged in solidarity with migrants, Heller reflects upon the following questions: How have the different forms of contestation shaped border violence over the last years? What have been their successes and limits? In addition to factual documentation and litigation, what other forms of action are necessary to effectively oppose border violence and enable the exercise of freedom of movement? And what role can aesthetic practices play within these?

The witness of voices from vulnerable territories and communities have given a sense for the future scenarios we will experience. In this perennial presence of crisis, it has become clear that official policies are inadequate to stand with those impacted most. From this perspective, the uncertain future requires us to join forces and it is time to gather diverse experiences and skills.

To develop such gatherings, various practitioners from art, law, and activism lead working groups that discussed specific questions. How can we create public attention and act up for social justice? What experiences can we build on to initiate self-organized communal structures and to foster resilience? The participatory discussion event was organized around multiple approaches to questions communities and ecosystems at risk, and possible ways to take action. The participants awere invited to gather in subgroups with the artists and activists involved around these questions, and exchange knowledge, practices while exercising imagination and building counter narratives.