Home » Articles posted by Joulia Strauss
Author Archives: Joulia Strauss
10 years of Avtonomi Akadimia ^^ Autonomous Groves
This number sings, in hexameter. Yet this number is a punk.
It roars about the earnest real of Autonomy. It purrs of Akadimia, exchanging teachings in a grove. It drums the joy of art; previously forbidden, it has returned to the polis, transmogrifying it — a harmony of disorder.
This number is an intangible comrade who fights on our side to protect the miracle of breathing ruins – activated by the rainbow, together with the plants and with us; together we are environmental personhood.
This number croons, cogently, of stamina and of persistence; it enthralls us with our own being connected – in the daydream, lived and surging, of our freedom.

On May 5th, as an alternative to the Easter weekend, the Ecologies of Care group, founded by Elke Krasny and Uska Jurmann, https://ecologiesofcare.org, and the feminist witches of Athens have gathered in the Akadimia Platonos. Infrastructure under Pressure – “Caring Practices of Resistance, Maintenance, Continuity, and Transformation”
Convened by Elke Krasny and Joulia Strauss

We practice martial arts precisely on the topos where Plato has invented militarised state – and overwrite it! Photo by Ines Moreira

We held a meeting with the Mouries collective at the Filotimo Residency, where the exhibition “Alright(wing)?”, curated by Raimar Stange, is taking place
(selection)
Celebratory program has continued during the heatwaves in June

Tania Hron
Workshop: The Dystopia-Utopia of Akadimia Platonos: From doom to dawn, or do we want to imagine different futures?
Photo by Luca Di Blasi

Luca Di Blasi
End times of “never again!” – Notes on the katechontic dimensions of the present
Photo by Tania Hron

Kasia Wojcik ^^ Curating Solidarities – Excerpts from the film “Constitución Nómada”
Photo by Tania Hron

Steven Corcoran
Philosophy and politics as vectors of autonomy: Knowledge and its excess
Photo by Luca Di Blasi

Helen Dimos
A poetry reading/talk on the difficulty and desire of/for communication, in poetry and the political

Helen Dimos
A poetry reading/talk on the difficulty and desire of/for communication, in poetry and the political

Joulia Strauss
Songs of the Transindigenous Assembly and Qi Gong
Revealing a painting by my father, which has been evacuated from Ukraine
Photo by Luca Di Blasi
online marathon: the economy of borders ^^ we lost our soft soul, by crossing the borders
Today we post a letter and two paintings from Raha Amiri:
Greeting and regards
With respect to all
I am Raha Amiri 24 years old from Afghanistan i have a girl she is 8 years old we are in Greece, Moria.
I would like to talk about my experiences. My work is about beauty and art with women. I am really exited sharing my paintings and my feelings to “The economy of borders” with all of you. “Burnt Nest” is one of my paintings about all human around the world who lost their home and their family. So I wanted to share my feelings sympathy with these people. My second painting is “Batwoman”, about all women who have forgotten their power and considered themselves weak. I shared my feelings about refugees with paintings beacuse each of them has embraced their sad possessions stories. How beautiful it is to be in solidarity, understand each other, so we all end up in this house whose name is the world so we dont forget to give love and affection to each other. Let’s build a beautiful world for a big familly because we are a family in the world.
Thanks to the friends who efforts hard for this beautiful program wish for victory and peaceful
My contact instagram:raha.tattoo1995
Facebook:raha amiri
Avtonomi Akadimia 2023: Rewilding and Rewriting
Avtonomi Akadimia 2023
Rewilding and Rewriting
It took the overturning of lakes into fire and for jungles to start inhaling, rather than emitting, oxygen, before the conditions of life on Earth would become a political factor. But just as some feeling and thinking humanoids started to assume their interconnectedness and rediscover animism, bulldozers came along to cut down trees in one of the few parks of Athens.
The death drive of economic rationalization now tearing Greece to pieces, has to be tamed. Tourists have had enough of colonial fictions of archaeological sites. Instead, they would like to join us, our movements of the First Global Reloveution, we who have gathered together, in the ruins of the European state, to imagine and script worlds beyond nations and borders, and who, with the power of art, manifest lives worth living, in which bulldozers let loose the subterranean river, Kiffissos, that flows under the lush cypresses and olive trees of the Akadimia Platonos Jungle.
Here, we esteem knowledge of the Good Life above all knowledges and weave together indigenous epistemologies. We leave behind the hierarchies of the art world and embrace collectiveness. We conjure the reuniting of art and physis in ecofeminism. We cast off identity politics. We recover political philosophy from the academies. And we extoll the Beauty of the Akadimia Platonos Jungle.

Ana Piquer: Workshop: The Ancient magic of dreams. Nahua/Mexican artist will teach us how to navigate in our dreams and connect with non-Western languages as a way of political resistance

Tania Hron
Reimagining and rewriting futur(es) in Plato’s Jungle
Workshop: What kind of social, cultural, political future would I like to imagine for a neighborhood?

Magali Dougoud
The Blue Continuum; The rising of the Womxn Waves – cinematic investigation on femicide in Berlin’s waterways
Film presentation. Podium discussion with Magali Dougoud and Eleni Riga. With the support of Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung. Photo: Pavlos Kavadias

Magali Dougoud
The Blue Continuum; The rising of the Womxn Waves – cinematic investigation on femicide in Berlin’s waterways. Film presentation. Podium discussion with Magali Dougoud and Eleni Riga. With the support of Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung Photo: Pavlos Kavadias

in the programme of The Office of Hydro-commons by Eleni Riga
Margarita Tsomou
On Planetary Feminism
Joulia Strauss
Transindigenous Assembly; Punk documentary about queer aboriginal and indigenous artists and their inventions of the “good life”, a life worth living amidst the wrong life
Film presentation
Discussion with Margarita Tsomou and Eleni Riga. On the photo by Alexandra Masmanidi: Joulia Strauss

in the programme of The Office of Hydro-commons by Eleni Riga
Margarita Tsomou
On Planetary Feminism
Joulia Strauss
Transindigenous Assembly; Punk documentary about queer aboriginal and indigenous artists and their inventions of the “good life”, a life worth living amidst the wrong life
Film presentation
Discussion with Margarita Tsomou and Eleni Riga. On the photo by Alexandra Masmanidi: Eleni Riga

in collaboration with Parrhesia Philosophy School Berlin Kasia Wojcik, Steven Corcoran, Omid Tofighian, Parwana Amiri, Ioulia Mermigka, DJ Justine: Migration as Radical Site of Art, Translation & Philosophy. On the photo by Pavlos Kavadias: Parwana Amiri

in collaboration with Parrhesia Philosophy School Berlin Kasia Wojcik, Steven Corcoran, Omid Tofighian, Parwana Amiri, Ioulia Mermigka, DJ Justine: Migration as Radical Site of Art, Translation & Philosophy. Photo: Pavlos Kavadias
Fight With Your Knowledge
Avtonomi Akadimia 2022
Welcome to this ∞th year of Avtonomi Akadimia
May it be a year of infinite solidarity, in defiance of the hybrid world war that threatens to engulf us. May it be a year in which an infinity of interrelated, self-governed communities, facing a world of havoc and mayhem, dare to celebrate life.
Avtonomi Akadimia, founded in 2014, has sought to be a humble contribution to the First Global Reloveution. This Reloveution has started well: we united, disagreed, agreed, and partially effected the empire’s dissolution. But now… in the throes of agony, capitalism sacrifices populations out of political opportunism, cultivating dictators who impose resource wars, mass rapes, genocides of indigenous land workers, witch hunts, and so on. How can we fight against this backlash?
Avtonomi Akadimia is a manifesto. But we have nothing to proclaim. There is no one to demand anything from. We are the ones we were waiting for and we live our script, forging our path as a self-organized grassroots university and durational art work. Here, living is learning, and learning is healing. We reunite shamanism and politics, creolize care feminism, blockchain unions, and frog medicine. We re-define art by distributing climate pamphlets, by practising ancestral sound healing, martial arts, and drawing with Qi. We cook and dance, we honour disobedient schools from previous struggles in order to formulate a political philosophy. We listen to the Grandmother of the Universe, a trans-indigenized Mari-Goddess, whose voice guides our passage to grasping nature as a sacred living organism.
This year, continuing on from last year’s ecofeminist part of the Room to Bloom project, we have opened a residency for Ukrainian artists. We welcome these Amazonians, who have left their birthlands and come to share with us their knowledge of resistance and of forging a society of solidarity.
This year, we support the workers of Athenian universities: hands off the autonomy of the academies!
This year, we further exemplify the process of collective enlivenment and of caring for the cultural heritage of the public jungle of Akadimia Platonos, by contributing to its protection as an environmental commons and establishing #LegalRights4AkadimiaPlatonosJungle and #§0LegalRights4MotherEarth.
We fight with our knowledge.
The programme takes place at three venues of the Avtonomi Akadimia: in the Akadimia Platonos Jungle, at the Villa Araucaria, an urban house with a jungle in an inner yard, situated underminingly behind Panteion University, Kallithea, and at The Muses’ Embassy, next to Filopappou Hill.
Programme
24 June, 20.00
Lucas
Preparations for the Avtonomi Akadimia
Lecture on Traditional Amazonean Frog Medicine
Akadimia Platonos Jungle
Kambo Ceremonies June 25 – June 28
Please, contact Lucas, limited participants: WhatsApp: +4915153246370
27 June, 19:00
James Simbouras
Keynote
New Delphi. Blockchain Machines, Gaian Cybernetics and Labour of Trust: Imagining new futures with dirt behind their ears
Villa Araucaria, zoom
27 June, 20:00
Raimar Stange
Climate Changes everything: Exhibition and distribution of Climate pamphlets
Talk by the curator Raimar Stange on zoom
Villa Araucaria and across the public space of Athens
1 July, 18:00
Elke Krasny
Workshop: Care feminism: Words, conversations, walks
Akadimia Platonos Jungle
2 July, 18:00
Marcella Caldas
Decolonial curatorship from the south: Deep listening and radical imagination for new horizons
Villa Araucaria
2 July, 19:00
Maria Mayor
Deep artist talk: Here I come to save the day
Villa Araucaria
3 July, 18.00
Joulia Strauss
Workshop: Qi Gong with elements of Kung Fu: Drawing with Qi
Villa Araucaria
3 July, 20.00
Hybrid terrains and entanglements in Kampos by
Stratis Vogiatsis
Villa Araucaria
5 July, 18:00
Elisa Sophia Braun
The Common Orchard: Architectural Choreographies for a Fruit Farm
Akadimia Platonos Jungle
5 July, 19:00
Eliana Otta
Messaging through the roots
Akadimia Platonos Jungle
6 July, 20:00
Steven Corcoran
Fighting for Knowledge: Enacting Equality
In solidarity with Empros
Free Self-managed Theater EMPROS
Riga Palamidou 2, Psirri 10554
10 July, 12:00 – 16:00
Liwaa Jazji
Storytelling workshop: Look back in…
Please, register: +306906912882
The Muses’ Embassy
14 July, 17:00
Eirini Vlavianou
Workshop:
Lullabies as songs of rest; from the cradle to feminist labour struggles
Villa Araucaria
14 July, 20:00
Alkistis Lara Papadakis
Food Pedagogies: A performative lecture around a cooking session
Villa Araucaria
16 July, 19:00
Eirini Vlavianou
Workshop: Lullabies as songs of rest; from the cradle to feminist labour struggles
Villa Araucaria
16 July, 22:00
Yuystyna Kravchuk
Kyiv after the Rave
The is talk followed by a collective cooking session and a rooftop party with DJ Justine
Villa Araucaria
17 July, 20:00
Thomas Oberender
Mind the gatekeepers: Pros and Cons for independent community projects in Krypto and IRW
Akadimia Platonos Jungle
To Araucaria ^^ Summer Semester 2021
Araucaria tree, to whom this semester is dedicated
Villa Araucaria, the pandemic venue of Avtonomi Akadimia
Queer Aboriginal Sista Girls (Transindigenous Assembly environment), photo: Fiona Kelly
Shipibo healer Maestra Justina (Transindigenous Assembly environment), photo: Fiona Kelly
Keynote lecture: Steven Corcoran ^^ Choice of the Gods, photos by Clara Mosconi
A special newspaper dedicated to the tree, was edited by Steven Corcoran, Clara Mosconi, and Joulia Strauss
room to bloom, ecofeminism workshops organized in collaboration with European Alternatives and AthenSYN
with Vassiliea Stylianidou aka Franck-Lee Alli-Tis, Aleksandra Rhodius, Mayoori Sangameshwar Hanagodimath (aka MUKTA Mayoori), Marina Naprushkina, and Katerina Katsifaraki
Photo: Marina Naprushkina
Photos: Clara Mosconi
Protecting the Akadimia Platonos Jungle: solidarity from Hungary, Colombia, Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine, Belarus, Albania, Germany, Ireland
Photo: Clara Mosconi
Photo: Clara Mosconi
Penny Travlou (Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research), Nadja Verena Marcin, Eleni Riga, Joulia Strauss and Marc Müller ^^ Ecofeminism
image from Sonal Jain’s presentation
Marc Müller and Joulia Strauss honour indigenous activists assasinated in Colombia, photo: Clara Mosconi
Qi Gong workshop with Khien Phuc
Nalini ^^ Plantwork. A lecture on traditional work with plant medicine from the Amazon
Clara Mosconi ^^ Voicing a choreography of Echo
Raimar Stange (online) ^^ art als assembly – how democracy could work in the climate change
Xanaé Bowe (on the right): ^^ A Parallel(es) Life, 2021, 105min., film screening and discussion
Tania Hron ^^ Shamans, witchcraft, plant medicine, and global climate change
Nitya ^^ Tibetan Pulsing
Katja Ehrhardt ^^ Communicating with trees
Youlia Mermigka, Nikos Souzas, Jojo Diakoumakos ^^ Autonomy of Migration, Border Regimes and Post-Racial Crisis: The Case of the Greek Island of Chios (2015-2016)
Thomas Oberender ^^ Towards a Gaia Theatre, photos: Marianna Bolano
This semester is prepared with the precious participation and support of Prof. Rainbow Snake André Sauer and Prof. Black Lion Yorgos Theodorakis
Aleksandra Rhodius from the Transindigenous Assembly environment
Mari Cats and Khien Phuc from the Transindigenous Assembly environment
Photo: Clara Mosconi
Avtonomi Akadimia — Academy of Transformation
Avtonomi Akadimia at Down to Earth. Klima Kunst Diskurs unplugged, Gropius Bau, 2020

Rainbow Snake: “Transindigenous Assembly” unplugged
Joulia Strauss in collaboration with costume designer Kristina Weiß-Busch,
upcycling-artist Gabi Bartels, dress maker Nina Janßen-Braje
Drawings: Anastasia Efstathiadi, Antigone Theodorou, Raha Amiri, Marc Müller
Shipibo embroideries: Isabel Franquines Bardales, Dorcas Maynas Romayna, Emilda Sanchez Barbaran, Keila Rojas Martinez

Avtonomi Akadimia — Academy of Transformation, a conversation between Thomas Oberender and Joulia Strauss
Down to Earth. Klima Kunst Diskurs unplugged, Gropius Bau, 2020
Photo: Eike Walkenhorst
© Berliner Festspiele/Immersion

Deep Artist Talk: Like a Hurricane – Nadja Verena Marcin’s OPHELIA and other Disasters
Photo by Fernando Schrupp

Isabell Schrickel: “Along the Third Attractor: the Local and Indigenous Communities’ Creative Involvement with the United Nations”

Isabell Schrickel: “Along the Third Attractor: the Local and Indigenous Communities’ Creative Involvement with the United Nations”

Michelle-Marie Letelier: “Ancient or Human-made?” Communication with the genetically manipulated salmon.

Avtonomi Akadimia — Academy of Transformation, a conversation between Thomas Oberender and Joulia Strauss
Down to Earth. Klima Kunst Diskurs unplugged, Gropius Bau, 2020
Photo: Eike Walkenhorst
© Berliner Festspiele/Immersion

Joulia Strauss “Rainbow Snake” Mari Altar, drawings in collaboration with Marc Müller, Anastasia Efstathiadi, Antigone Theodorou, Raha Amiri
Athens

Meeting of climate activists, artists, philosophers and lawyers, organised in collaboration with the Permaculture School
The Akadimia Platonos Jungle* is launching a call for an integrative protection of commons, biodiversity and cultural heritage, for the relevant European legislation to seek inspiration in animist cosmologies, for the education system to transform through indigenous forms of knowledge, and for the separation between culture and nature to be overcome.
*In Greek, the gender of the word ‘garden’ (ο κήπος) is masculine, so Akadimia Platonos, updating itself, has now become a jungle (η ζούγκλα), which, in Greek, is feminine.

Maria Juliana Byck, ethical fashion designer, activist, artist, experimental filmmaker, and social practitioner, photo by Christopn Böhmer

Joulia Strauss, artist, activist
presenting Avtonomi Akadimia
and mediating telephone contributions by Georgia Kotretsos and Eirini Vlavianou
Avtonomi Akadimia in collaboration with LAB12 ASFA
Steven Corcoran: On Egalitarian Politics Today: Thinking Outside a ‘Desire for the West’
online marathon: the economy of borders ^^ we lost our soft soul, by crossing the borders
July 9th
This project is a pen illustration which tries to address the position of women in situations of war and destruction. Structured in reference to many symbolisms extracted from classical painting, the work unveils a female figure rising in a manner similar to that of a monument, from rough waters while a deconstructed, destroyed city lies behind her. Rough waters are usually used in art hist…ory as a means to manifest pain, disease, war or destruction. The use of an iconography similar to that of the Art Nouveau movement, in which women are portrayed as ethereal and seductive, as a decorative erotic object in the painting that is, is not aimless. As the title of the work implies, the purpose of this illustration was to underline the minimum say women have in political choices, while being the ones that are inflicted the most pain. Wars, being the continuation of patriarchal power remnants, always place the most vulnerable in situations that do not involve them. We, as women, in particular are constantly found in between battles organised and manifested by men for men. This is a shout out for everyone who has been hurt, used, abused, manipulated, blamed while being under circumstances they did not choose. When the inhumanity doesn’t hurt us, it makes us stronger!

July 8th
Liwaa Yazji
My contribution to The Economy of Borders… Thank you all for the chance to be part of this group and event.
This is a trailer to my film “Haunted”, it talks about Syrian in one of the critical moments as I believe during these harsh times. whether to leave Home or not… if you ever had the luxury even to question. Syrians like everyone else like their homes (some spent over 20 years to obtain one!) so, it is not easy for them to be so uprooted… it was crucial to film Syrians while still in Syria… to give a correct idea how they are not Naturally Born Refugees as media makes of… them.
To have a future is a right
If countries sell weapons to Syria, it is strange that the same countries refuse to take in refugees… the natural outcome of wars they had their fingers in.
People will continue to move due to so many reason… climate, wars, pandemics… as long as the wealth distribution is so imbalanced and abusive.
July 7th
Antigoni Theodorou
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmvv3fOmFGEKhjFtPO3I-PA
http://lesvos.w2eu.net/…/pixi-the-olive-tree-and-the-old-w…/
July 5th
Vera Varlamova
How to play?
July 4rth
Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou
This is Tinhairbell, a non-binary, trans Hairy Fairy.
For me it was important to create a transfeminist, intersectional message, spreading radical softness, tenderness and vulnerability as a political tool of resistance against all borders and oppressive regimes.
This is a small poetic fairytale about her.…
✨✨✨
The Hairy Fairy was born out of the last tears of a woman who was burnt at the stake after she had been accused of witchcraft. That day Ursula let her bittersweet tears fall, she let them flow on her whole body and fall on the ground. Her body, a source of identity and prison, turned into ashes, which seeped through the ground and took root in the silent history of the world. Tinhairbell rose from the mud and the trails of death. One component of her essence is the constant fear of persecution. She flies with her one shiny wing in perpetuity across time and opposes all the mechanisms of control and exploitation of her body using her supersized arms. Her fairy dust consists of the voices of women covered by silence, the therapists, the insubordinates, the gossips, those who poisoned their masters and lived by themselves in the margins. If you look down below the sky and close your eyes, you might see her sprinkling glitter with her colourful boxing gloves.
✨✨✨
Η Τριχωτή Νεράιδα γεννήθηκε από το τελευταίο κλάμα μιας γυναίκας που βρισκόταν πάνω στους πασσάλους της πυράς επειδή την κατηγόρησαν για μαγεία. Εκείνη τη μέρα η Ούρσουλα ελευθέρωσε τα γλυκόπικρα δάκρυά της, τα άφησε να διασχίσουν το κορμί της και να πέσουν στο χώμα. Το σώμα της, πηγή ταυτότητας και φυλακής, μεταμορφώθηκε σε στάχτη η οποία εισχώρησε στο έδαφος και ρίζωσε στη σιωπηλή ιστορία του κόσμου. Η Τρίχερμπελ βγήκε μέσα από τη λάσπη και τα ίχνη του θανάτου. Ένα από τα συστατικά της υπόστασής της είναι ο διαρκής φόβος καταδίωξης. Πετάει με το ένα της αστρα-φτερό στο διηνεκές διασχίζοντας το χρόνο και εναντιώνεται με τα υπερμεγέθη της μπράτσα σε όλους τους μηχανισμούς ελέγχου και εκμετάλλευσης του κορμιού της. Η νεραιδόσκονή της αποτελείται από τις φωνές των γυναικών που τις κάλυψε η σιωπή, τις θεραπεύτριες, τις ανυπάκουες, τις κουτσομπόλες, αυτές που δηλητηρίαζαν τους αφέντες τους και ζούσανε μόνες τους στο περιθώριο. Αν κοιτάξεις χαμηλά κάτω από τον ουρανό και κλείσεις τα μάτια, ίσως τη δεις να σκορπίζει γκλίτερ με τα πολύχρωμα πυγμαχικά της γάντια.
July 2nd
In 1981 she began with performative photography (together with Cornelia Schleime), in 1982 she released Super-8 films and wrote articles for underground magazines of Prenzlauer Berg cultural scene. From 1984 on: fashion-object shows, Super-8 films and performances with a group of female artists from Erfurt “Exterra XX“. In 1989 Gabriele Stötzer co-founded “Women for Change“, she was one of the initiators of the first occupation of a State Security building in the GDR on December 4th 1989. 1990 adoption of the maiden name Stötzer. Since 1990 she has published eight books, from 2010 on she worked as a lecturer for performance seminars at the University of Erfurt. In 2011 and 2013 she created features for the TV Chanel mdr about the prison of Hoheneck and about forced adoption in the DDR, she appeared in concerts reciting text with the Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar. Since 1996 international exhibitions “boheme and dictatorship in the DDR“, 2009 “re.act.feminism“, 2013 „Schwingungskurve Leben“ (Vibrating Curves Life), solo exhibition at Klassik Foundation Weimar. Gabriele Stötzer curated “Between Withdrawal and Action” („Zwischen Ausstieg und Aktion“) Kunsthalle Erfurt, “Antitheses” („Gegenbilder“) Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2018, “Torn Threads” („Gerissene Fäden“), Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art Cottbus, 2018, “Medea Rebels” („Medea muckt auf“), Dresden State Art Collections, and The Wende Museum Los Angeles 2018/19, “East German Photography”, Arles, 2019. 2019-2020 “The Stötzer Archive”, Gallery of Contemporary Art Leipzig.
2013 she was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s Order of Merit.
For the time after: the social performance: learning from each other
Maybe for the time after an experience from the time before useful…
Through years of organizing a performance seminar at the university of erfurt every six months since 2010 i have developed – almost against my will – a knowledge in my mind. I felt it would be worthwhile to write down what i learned but have always avoided doing so. However, i will do it now. It is concerning the reorientation of communication which is now remotely controlled, remotely wired and remotely connected with all information and all events. Our life is in constant motion, a taking in and a giving (of air, of food, of fluid, of thoughts). I call it a constant process of development or learning. And an essential understanding we humans should learn and live with in order to practice the harmony, the tolerance, the originality, humanism, and laughter, that is composed of our many diversities. I am talking about direct contact, person to person contact, the process of entering the world of the other and perceiving the world of the other, or towards the other, and at the same time, the connection of the other’s connection to oneself. sensual learning processes, processes which can consist in the relearning of and the abandoning of old patterns, leading to new social interaction: the expanded interaction with each other, so to speak, based on respect and equal treatment of the ideas and the actions, and the physicality of a community with one another. In the performance presented here, I describe a possibility for this extended interaction with one another, a process of physical self-indulgence, spiritual delivery, the opening towards oneself and others under the constant prerequisite of no-failure and self-satisfaction. The performance is based on minimalistic equipment – only the equipment of one’s own body – that carries out one’s own ideas and not those of others in the empty space, a space that is a visionary space for the visionary action. The period of my performance from getting to know each other until presentation is a single week, the level of participation has been 6-20 students so far. The end product is a collaborative performance, I call it social performance.
July 1rst
WIR SIND HIER, WIR SIND LAUT : MACHT PLATZ!
WE ARE HERE, WE ARE LOUD: MAKE SPACE/GET OUT OFF OUR WAY!
We – women*, migrants*, minorities – are part of this society and take place in building it.
Now we deserve our space, our recognition. We will not let this space be taken away from us. We are not quiet. And we are many.
…
June 30th
by Florine Schüschke:
multipass. valid
for all countries. and borders
become obsolete
…
multipass. one for
every person in the world.
same for everyone.
seems like a dream but
we have to believe in it
becoming true. a fight.
because passports are
the biggest inequity
one can imagine.
because passports are
the biggest absurdity
one can imagine.
June 29th
By Olia Sosnovskaya:
I am writing this in Vienna, Austria. Due to the total neglection of the coronavirus pandemic by the Belarusian president A. Lukashenko, who refused to imply quarantine and orders to lower the official statistics (if you follow it – just don’t trust it) and the number of tests, the situation there is really frightening. People and businesses crowd-fund for medical supplies. Every time I hear and read about someone of my friends’ relatives, colleagues and friends being sick or dead. At this moment, Belarus is rated with the highest coronavirus risk by the Austrian government. It is unknown when we would be able to move between the Schengen borders more or less ‘freely’ again, even if having visas.
And then, more news is coming when the president election campaign started: endless lines of people who are queuing in the epidemic to give their signature for the alternative future candidates; then those candidates to the candidates (even prior their registration) being detained; the current president daily humiliating and assaulting the people in the media; bloggers and hundreds of people protesting the detainment getting arrested.
And the most recent news was that almost half of Minsk districts’ water was polluted — not safe to drink, to cook, to wash. The authorities denied the danger for the whole day! The problem is still not solved fully, and there is still no reliable information about what happened.
You may think the borders are far, and that they protect you. Very soon the first Belarusian nuclear power plant will get launched, regardless the numerous safety warnings, lack of proper examinations and existing failures. The recent water crisis in Minsk reminds us, that in case of emergency we will not get neither information, nor help. The radiation does not care about the borders.
PS. Below is the donation campaign for everyone who has been those been recently arrested, fined or persecuted by the state in Belarus.
https://www.facebook.com/donate/1123543824684874/269990080768227/
June 27th
A Trip to Dagestan, by Victoria Lomasko:
By Nagrane Narva:
https://hopeisnohome.tumblr.com/
June 26th
by Nicola Schüschke:
At the moment I am trying to understand the phenomenon of „Heimatroman“, a sub-genre of the German “Groschenroman”(dime-novel). Even if this kind of pulp literature seems absurdly outdated, it is being read widely throughout this country. People read them in order to get distracted, as the end is always a happy one, there’s nothing much you can miss. They are perfect to make yourself think that there are no problems in this world other than choosing between the rich and the beautiful. The stories follow strict rules: no politics, no sex, no surprise! They are full of reactionary images, submissive sexism and romanticized nationalism. Especially the cover images show what it’s all about: on most of the novels there’s a young couple or a girl smiling in the middle of nature. Even the colour-schemes often include the colours of the German flag. Absurdly, the Heimatroman is being published in higher numbers that any other books in Germany. I asked myself what kind of story the main author of German fiction, Angela Merkel, would write about. I figured out, it must be about „Grenzenlose Liebe“ – endless love, love without borders.
Still – even if Horst Seehofer doesn’t seem to come up with another volume of prose but just repeats his same old verses – I don’t lose hope that there are at least some others out here who have other ideas about “Heimat” than a flirt with the hunter on a castle in Bavaria!
June 25th
Today we continue with our marathon with Batoul Baty Sedawi:
Women are the most vulnerable to injustice in the war-torn countries, but in my country, the injustice will be doubly unfair as they are subjected to the worst kinds of torture and rape in the prisons, and after their release, they are ostracized by their families and society where they are considered to have brought shame to them.
النساء هم الاكثر تعرضا للظلم في البلاد التي تعاني من الحرب، لكن في بلادي سوف يكون الظلم مضاعفا حيث انها تتعرض لابشع انواع العذاب والاغتصاب في المعتقلات، وبعد خروجها تتعرض لنبذ من قبل اهلها ومجمتع حيث تعتبر قد جلبت عار لهم .
video:
by Baty Sedawi
June 22nd
Today we continue with Lada Nakonechna‘s work:
This project took place on the different streets of Zurich. People were proposed to create the secure place by delineation their own territory using yellow chalk (this color signs public space places which are privatised). At the end the chalk circle makes people immovable inside.
June 20th
This day is dedicated to The House of Women for Empowerment & Emancipation, Athens.
https://www.facebook.com/Το-Σπίτι-των-Γυναικών-για-την-Ενδυνάμωση-τη-Χειραφέτηση-1452231711753592.
Here comes the message from Shayan, one of the former detainees of the Petrou Ralli prison, please, take the time to hear the witness of Europe today:
link to Shayan’s message
A small fragment from the zine by Shayan, she and others from the community of The House of Women for Empowerment & Emancipation publish and distribute it for those who are still in prison:
Letter of Denunciation: human rights activists and everyone else, please, don’t let this document pass your attention.
Our initiative ‘The House of Women for Empowerment & Emancipation’ is part of the anti-authoritarian solidarity grassroots movement. We are a self-organized feminist collective opposed to all states and borders, political parties, public or private institutions and NGOs. We are committed to the struggle for women’s emancipation and the end of gender based and racial violence, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and the trafficking of women and children that is reproduced by the machinery of patriarchy globally. For almost 4 years, we have been meeting with detained women, starting our visits at Εlliniko and then at Petrou Ralli. We listen to detainees’ stories and demands and document the problems they face, attempting to answer their questions and give voice to their denunciations. At the same time, we try to foster and sustain a broader local and international social network of solidarity with other individuals and collectives through organizing events around imprisonment and other gender issues. We work to build and strengthen our relationships and empower one other, even after women are released from the detention center. Together we struggle for our liberation.
FOR THE BREAKDOWN OF BORDERS, THE ABOLITION OF DETENTION CENTERS, PRISONS & CONCENTRATION CAMPS,
AGAINST THE PANDEMIC OF PATRIARCHY,
SOLIDARITY AND SELF ORGANIZATION ARE OUR WEAPONS
Email: spiti.gynaikon@gmail.com
Fb: Το Σπίτι των Γυναικών, για την Ενδυνάμωση & τη Χειραφέτηση
Some photos from the process: The House of Women for Empowerment & Emancipation is making their poster for The Economy of Borders action…
June 19th
By Sarah Kwasnicki:
Arrival without landing My daily arrivals: home, Schlesische 27, Neue Nachbarschaft// Moabit, friends, garden – where I feel safe, full, grounded, where I feel strong and loved. I arrive because I see my future and I want to stay. People who flee blocked from arrival. Violence at the borders, people held against their will, under inhumane conditions. Once the European border is crossed, the decisions come from above – if you’ll stay, if you’ll be deported, where you’ll to live, what you are permitted to do, what will be denied of you. A container, a fence, no voice, no choice, – on repeat – that’s not arrival. The right to live, the right to vote, the right to work, the right to move, the right to home, the right to friendly neighbors, the right to be together, the right to a garden, the right to learn, the right to be seen, the right to be heard, the right to love, the right to peace, the right to happiness, the right to a bathtub, the right to arrival We are living in privilege that we don’t want to see.
Heute mit Sarah Kwas
Ankommen statt Unterbringen – Tagtäglich komme ich an – zu Hause, in der Schlesischen 27, in der Neuen Nachbarschaft// Moabit, bei Freunden, im Garten, … – kurzum, an Plätzen, wo ich mich wohl und sicher fühle, wo ich geerdet bin, Kraft tanken kann, das Miteinander genieße. Ich bin angekommen, weil ich weiß, dass ich eine Perspektive habe und bleiben will. Tagtäglich wird Menschen auf der Flucht ein Ankommen verwehrt. Sie werden gewaltvoll an Grenzen aufgehalten und es bleibt nichts anderes übrig, als unter unmenschlichen Bedingungen zu verharren. Und wurde die Europäische Außengrenze überquert, wird von oben herab entschieden, – ob du bleiben darfst, ob du abgeschoben wirst, wo du leben musst, was du zu tun hast, was dir verwehrt bleibt. Und wieder, ein Container, ein Zaun, keine Entscheidungsgewalt, keine Stimme, keine Perspektive – das ist kein Ankommen. Ein Recht auf Wohnen, ein Recht auf Wählen, ein Recht auf Arbeit, ein Recht auf Umziehen, ein Recht auf zu Hause, ein Recht auf nette Nachbarn, ein Recht auf Miteinander, ein Recht auf Garten, ein Recht auf Lernen, ein Recht auf Anerkennung, ein Recht auf Liebe, ein Recht auf Frieden, ein Recht auf gute Laune, ein Recht auf Badewanne, ein Recht auf Ankommen. Und wir leben unsere Privilegien, erkennen sie nicht und treten sie mit Füßen.
June 17th
Clara Stella Hüneke
We continue our Marathon with Nadira Husain! Nadira is installing this week her exhibition with two other artists Amina Ahmed and Varunika Saraf at Heidelberger Kunstverein which will open on Friday. And she sends us these images:
Marina Naprushkina
June 15th
WISH is a non-mixed group of 10-15 women refugees and activists on the island of Lesbos, Greece. We were born in different places, we have different ages, experiences, dreams and fears. But we share the idea that solidarity is our best weapon.
Most of us live in the refugee camp of Moria, others in the camp of Kara Tepe or in Mytilini. We have been working on the island for two years. We create spaces of resistance in this world full of walls and borders, full of prisons, racism, sexism and injustice. Resistance means mutual support, care of the others and respect.
Since the beginning of this year the increase of violence -xenophobia, racism, COVID-19, and systemic neglect of those seeking asylum – threatens the lives of people on the move and those in solidarity. This worsen the already harsh situation in the island’s refugee camps, where there are currently more than 20,000 people without access to any basic right. In this context, it has become more evident than ever that our main strength is our links, which allows us to adapt and continue.
Poster by WISH
“We are the face of the refugee woman.
We are the young women who live in Moria.
Also the old ones, the single ones and their kids.
We are those who try hard.
We are those who lost themselves, we don’t know who are we.
We are our future, but we lost our hope.
We thought me were humans, now we know we are refugees.
We are those supposed to have rights.
We are strong.
We are together, we hold each other to change our moods.
We are the ones who walk together.
The ones who stand together.”
Facebook page: @wishlesb
Email: wishlesbos@gmail.com
June 14th
Vanessa Gravenor: Sicherheitsbesessener Staat June 13th

June 12th We would like to introduce our participant Yevgenia Belorusets: we are so happy about her participation! Coinsidentially, simultaneously, she was awarded the HKW International Literature Award 2020 for her book “Glückliche Fälle”. The book has been published by Matthes & Seitz, Berlin. This reading is in German, but we invite you to meet Evgenia on the parasemantic level:
Yevgenia Belorusets is a photographer and writer and lives in Berlin and in Kyiv. She is the co-founder of “Prostory”, a journal for literature, art and politics, and a member of the interdisciplinary curatorial group “Hudrada”. Her works move at the intersection of art, literature, journalism and social activism, between document and fiction. Her artistic method was established in her long-term projects such as “Gogol Street 32”, which portrayed the residents of a communal apartment building during their daily activities in a slowly decaying living environment, or in the project “Victories of the Defeated”, which included series of documentary photographs, texts and interviews and was dedicated to the coal miner communities, which continued to exist in Eastern Ukraine on the very edge of military conflict. To accomplish this work Yevgenia Belorusets visited between 2014 and 2017 cities near and in the warzon of Donbass Region in Ukraine. In 2018 / 2019 she has published a book of stories called Fortunate Fallings (Shchastlivyie padeniia) about women living in the shadow of the now-frozen, now-thawing conflict in the Donbass region, caused by Russian military intervention after the Kyiv Maidan of 2014. The publishing hous Matthes & Seitz issued it in Germany in 2019.
Yevgenia Belorusets, 2020
June 11th
Today we post a letter and two paintings from Raha Amiri:
Raha Amiri, Batwoman, 2020
Raha Amiri, Burnt Nest, 2020
Greeting and regards
With respect to all
I am Raha Amiri 24 years old from Afghanistan i have a girl she is 8 years old we are in Greece, Moria.
I would like to talk about my experiences. My work is about beauty and art with women. I am really exited sharing my paintings and my feelings to “The economy of borders” with all of you. “Burnt Nest” is one of my paintings about all human around the world who lost their home and their family. So I wanted to share my feelings sympathy with these people. My second painting is “Batwoman”, about all women who have forgotten their power and considered themselves weak. I shared my feelings about refugees with paintings because each of them has embraced their sad possessions stories. How beautiful it is to be in solidarity, understand each other, so we all end up in this house whose name is the world so we dont forget to give love and affection to each other. Let’s build a beautiful world for a big family because we are a family in the world.
Thanks to the friends who efforts hard for this beautiful program wish for victory and peaceful
My contact instagram: raha.tattoo1995
Facebook: raha amiri
online marathon: the economy of borders ^^ we lost our soft soul, by crossing the borders
We would like to thank all participating artists and activists. It is great, what we achieved only in a few weeks. Thanks to everyone for your participation and involvement, for your support yesterday at the opening and assembly. Tomorrow we start our online marathon. Please, stay with us for the next four weeks.
online marathon: the economy of borders ^^ we lost our soft soul, by crossing the borders
The exhibition will be accompanied by a four week long online marathon. The participants will be making daily contributions referring to their work, the socio-political situation and their political demands.
Media partners: Neue Nachbarschaft/Moabit, Moabit Mountain College (Berlin), The House of Women for Empowerment & Emancipation (Athens), Prostory (on literature, social criticism and modern art)
Avtonomi Akadimia unfolds into the UFO of the Kyiv International 2017
True revolutions arrive on the dove’s feet of media history
Friedrich Kittler
In occasion of the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, Avtonomi Akadimia payed an extensive visit to The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017.
UFO portrait by Joulia Strauss
The Winter Semester was interentangled with the public program and has enfolded at the main venue, the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, also known as the “UFO”.
After the documenta 14’s Parliament of Bodies that has moved learning into the center of the art discourse, UFO of the Kyiv International had offered us the next ideal environment to continue the experiment of education as a socio-cybernetic art work. UFO’s conference hall, originally planned as an experience of oneness of sound and image, syneisthesis, (σύν syn, “together”, and αἴσθησις aisthēsis, “sensation”) has not been accomplished during the Soviet times. As a force that creates chronotopologies of oneness of art, philosophy, technology and politics, Avtonomi Akadimia furtherdeveloped the uncompleted construction by modulating the aspired experience from synaisthēsis to what can be called synethosis, the unity of the movements of our First Global Revolution.
Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017 has organized a meeting with the architect of the UFO, Florian Yuriev, to discuss the renovation project which may turn the unique monument of modernist architecture into the part of the shopping and entertainment center “Ocean Mall”. UFO, according to law, can be only used for the educational purposes. Avtonomi Akadimia contributed to the discussion with the solidarity action of exemplifying its fulfillment.
Program:
November 1, Wednesday, 17:00
Presentation of “Krytyka Polityczna Athens”: Universitas by Katja Ehrhardt (AthenSYN) and The School of Everything by Joulia Strauss (Avtonomi Akadimia) (Greece/Germany).
Photos: Sasha Kovalenko
November 1, Wednesday, 19:00
Eirini Vlavianou (Greece)
In Memoriam Zygmunt Bauman
November 3, Friday, 17:00
“Deep Hanging Out” presentation by Helmut Batista (Brazil)
November 3, Friday, 19:00
“Acoustic Weapons: From the Walls of Jericho to the GitMo Playlist” performance by Sebastian Bayse Schäfer (Germany)
November 4, Saturday, 16:00
“Dread Nought! Fear Not – in the Age of Anxiety” presentation by Judith Holzer and Marcel Schobel (Germany)
Judith Holzer enjoying the view from our UFO observation appartment
November 5, Sunday, 14:00
“Pirate Cinema and the New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art” talk and screenings by Jan Gerber and Sebastian Lütgert (Germany):
14:00 Revolution 1 (French): Chris Marker, Gaspard Glanz, Ute Holl, Peter Ott, et al.
17:00 Revolution 2 (October): Kira Muratova, Peter Cherkasky, Artavazd Peleshian, Ken Jacobs, et al.
20:00 Revolution 3 (Digital): Dzyga Vertov, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Grandrieux, et al.
November 10, Friday, 17:00
“Final Fantasy II – 21 Translations of Purpose in Japanese – 喜怒哀楽 Kidoairaku (Joy-Furious-Sadness-Pleasure)” presentation by Hiroshi McDonald Mori (Japan).
Hiroshi McDonald Mori’s talk took place on the day after the opening of a giant blockbuster show on Japanese culture in the Mystetski Arsenal exhibition hall. But what matters about Japan are the subversive strategies of its queer community shared by Hiroshi McDonald Mori.
November 12, Sunday, 17:00
“From Parking Space to Park” film screening and discussion by Clara Hüneke (Germany).
Does the future of the UFO and other struggles for public space depend on our ability to form a responce from the side of the community, as in the case told by Clara Stella Hüneke’s film?
November 12, Sunday, 19:00
“Ethico-aesthetic paradigm against the Fascistization of Society. The Greek Case and the Murder of Pavlos Fyssas” talk by Ioulia Mermigka (Greece).
Justyna Kravchuk, who translated Judith Butler’s “Frames of War”
Vlad Holovko, artist, initiator and organizer of Plivka Art Center, Nastya Teor, who took control of our stay in Kyiv, and founding member of Occupy Museums, Noah Fischer.
November 14, Tuesday, 19:00
“Snapshots from Future Occupations” talk by Noah Fischer (USA)
Olexiy Buistov, artist, initiator and organizer of Singulart space, speaking
Joulia Strauss emphasizes the political difference of The Kyiv International from the usual Biennials as a remark closing the program.
Special thanks: Elena Dietrich, Eirini Vlavianou, Nastya Teor
Beyond the official program, informal exchange between the participants and the community in Kyiv took place. Nowadays, again, politics is made in the kitchen! We are very grateful for the warm reception to Oksana Briukhovetska, Nataliia Neshevets, Yustyna Kravchuk, Ruslana Koziienko, Anna Kravets, Anna Tsyba, Vlad Holovko, Olexiy Buistov, Nikita Kadan, Valeriia Didenko, Maria Pashkova, Dana Kosmina, and – for his kind invitation – to Vasyl Cherepanyn.
All photos above by Sasha Kovalenko
Nataliia Neshevets, David Chichkan, Anna Tsyba and Noah Fischer at the exhibition just closed by the curators due to censorship from the side of the Pavlo Tychyna Literary-Memorial Museum which became complicit with the right wing groups.
Clara Stella Hüneke and Ioulia Mermigka demonstrating the feminist art works by Oxana Briukhovetska (who joined the photo on the right)
Legendary Fridge Dance by Dana Kosmina at the UFO appartment. Lady with a cup: Marta Madej, Krytyka Polityczna Berlin
Elena Dietrich, Alexandra Streshna, Clara Stella Hüneke, Ioulia Mermigka, Hiroshi McDonald Mori, Nastya Teor, Anna Kravets at the “creepy bar”