Im mittlerweile ja wohl wieder abflauenden internationalen Trend städtischen Campierens setzt der steirische Herbst 2012 auf ein einwöchiges 24/7 Camp mit dem Titel “Truth is Concrete“. Das Programm ist sehr umfangreich und orientiert vor allem auf eine bunte Mischung internationaler kritischer KünsterInnen und AktivistInnen. Darunter sind auch Lieblinge des westlichen Medien-Mainstreams wie Femen oder – irgendwann angekündigt aber wohl nicht möglich – Pussy Riot.
Was die Stadt betrifft – sei es die wo das Camp steht oder sei es die abstrakte – so ist da eher wenig Platz im Programm. Einzelne Dinge berühren sie. Zu Bogotá gibt es ein Gespräch über die Rolle der Kunst in der “Aufwertung” – was auch immer das sein möge – der Innenstadt und eine Lecture-Performance über den Abriss eines Wohnviertels. Zu Graz veranstaltet das Theater am Bahnhof täglich um 5 Uhr Früh eine Exkursion in den öffentlichen Raum. Eine Gruppe kroatischer Künstler organisiert schließlich noch eine Diskussion zum Thema “Commoning the space”. Und dann gibt es noch ein wenig zu Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum und collective mapping.
Sicher ein sehr gut organisiertes Camp – schließlich wurde es von ArchitektInnen gebaut. Die Wahrheit ist aber: es ist kein Camp. Campieren ist verboten. Im Gegensatz zur diesjährigen Berlin Bienale werden hier keine AktivistInnen ausgestellt sondern gleich nur der Name besetzt. Wenigstens bleibt man dann unter sich. Ob das die Stadt so wollte oder die VeranstalterInnen?
Fr, 21.9.2012
Bogotá change
20:00-21.00
Black Cube
Antanas Mockus (CO) in conversation with Joanna Warsza (PL)
When Antanas Mockus took over Bogotá for the first time as mayor in 1995, the city was considered as one of the most hopeless in the world. Mockus got elected without the backing of a political party – and employed artistic tactics to change the fate of Bogotá: mime artists regulated the streets, weapons were exchanged for toys, a big heart was cut out of his bullet-proof vest … With ideas like these, Mockus not only brought back a feeling of civil responsibility to the citizens, but he also was successful in hard numbers: the homicide rate fell 33%, traffic fatalities 50%, 7,000 community security groups were formed and more than 60,000 people voluntarily paid 10% more taxes to support his policies.
Sa, 22.9.2012
Daybreak into the city I: Park politics
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Marta Navaridas / The Loose Collective (A)
Join collective polit-sports in the early hours of the morning at a spot, highly characteristic for Graz as a city of bans, which will be a perfect build-up for election campaigns to come.
Witness to the ruins
19.00-20.00
Black Cube
Lecture performance by Mapa Teatro (CO) With special appearance by Antanas Mockus (CO)
“Witness to the Ruins” is the result of witnessing one of the most ambitious urban development projects undertaken in Bogotá, at the threshold of the millennium. Mapa Teatro recalls the images, testimonies and stories of the ancient inhabitants of The Santa Inés-El Cartucho district in Bogotá, before, during and after its disappearance due to the construction of the Third Millennium Park. “Witness to the Ruins” gives account of the artistic option, of the testimonial role confronted within the deep paradoxes of reality.
So, 23.9.2012
Daybreak into the city II: Meet and greet at squatters’ breakfast
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Jeudi Noir (F)
Launching assistance for occupying houses – for requisitions, as they call it – for a city still unfamiliar with this term.
Guerilla gardening
08.30-09.00
White Box
Tactic talk by Richard Reynolds (GB) Guerrilla gardening is gardening without boundaries, more specifically it‘s gardening someone else‘s land without asking. Typically guerrilla gardeners strike neglected public land, but their motivations are as diverse as the people. Activists, artists, environmentalists, gardeners, pranksters, protestors, thrill seekers – guerrilla gardeners come in many shades of green.
The pansy project
09.00-09.30
White Box
Tactic talk by Paul Harfleet (GB) Pansies as memories at the site of homophobic abuse: “The pansy project” has many incarnations; small scale unmarked individual plantings, free pansy “Hand Outs” where the artist speaks to passers-by about the project, installations of thousands of plants at the site of homophobia and exhibitions of the photographs Paul Harfleet has made over the last seven years. He also plans to plant a series of pansies around Graz at the site of homophobic hate crime throughout his stay.
Mo, 24.9.2012
Daybreak into the city III: Redressing the market
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Jisun Kim (ROK) and Doris Psenicnik (A)
An encounter between farmwomen and female activists not to just swap clothing.
Di, 25.9.2012
Daybreak into the city IV: Feminist blinking
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Hermine Grabner de Luca (A) et al.
Feminists bat their eyelashes in the grey of the dawn at the state of affairs in general. Hermine Grabner de Luca will certainly prepare more than coffee and cake.
Mi, 26.9.2012
Daybreak into the city IV: Listening is a political act
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Robert Steijn / united sorry (NL)
A short trip into nature, to the home of the deer. Many cultures know the ritual “Hirschtanz” but does one need that? Self-taught deer dancer Robert Steijn and his nymphs and gatekeepers welcome the new dawn with the slogan: “Listening is a political act”.
Commoning the space – Interventions, interpellations, strategies
11.00-13.00
White Box
Hosted by Goran Sergej Pristaš (HR) & Tomislav Medak / BADco. (HR) With Vjekoslav Gašparović / pulska grupa (HR), Ana Džokić & Marc Neelen / STEALTH.unlimited (NL/SRB), Slaven Tolj (HR)
Recently, space – in its various concretions and manifestations – has become the fulcrum of social contestation: occupations of squares, streets, campuses. Encampments against gentrifications, privatisations, commodifications. Test sites for new social compositions, new forms of solidarity, new political openings. The space is both the metonymy and the actual site where the processes of capitalist capture of collective means of existence and secondary exploitation of intense sociality materialise.“Commoning the Space“ presents and debates the strategies that the cultural activists – artists, cultural workers, architects, students, etc. – are employing to make those processes manifest, to bring the spaces of antagonism to public attention and to mobilise a public around them.
Starting from the experiences of struggle for the common, the contributors will discuss ways to create a space in common, interpellate a public around it, sustain new forms of social organisation that come to inhabit it, scale and explode its transformative momentum beyond its here and now.
Do, 27.9.2012
Daybreak into the city VI: The political in public spaces
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Joachim Hainzl (A)
As the city awakens, Joachim Hainzl will walk through the streets he knows well and share his view on the political in public space. Breakfast is included.
Fr, 28.9.2012
Daybreak into the city VII: Russian twilight
05.00-07.30
Meeting Point: Laila’s Bar
Excursions by Theater im Bahnhof (A) With Herwig G. Höller (A)
Herwig Höller and Ed. Hauswirth invite those who didn’t sleep and those who just got up early to a Russian breakfast: to talk about Russia, its artists and the whole camp.
Collective mapping
11.30-12.00
Black Cube
Tactic talk by Iconoclasistas (AR)
Iconoclasistas long to break anesthesised communication and aestheticisation of politics through processes and images of critical and ethical thought. After collective based research and long term interactive work with local people on issues they are part of, Iconoclasistas have produced diagrams, multi-planes, timelines, landscapes comprising territorial reflections and disruptive discourses, showing relations and responsibilities of hegemonic power.
http://www.truthisconcrete.org
http://www.steirischerherbst.at