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Migration and borders, municipalism and the commons are the axes of a Festival of art and politics that invites dialogue and participation

In conjunction with the Madrid European Commons Assembly, part of the P2P Foundation team will be present at the TRANSEUROPA festival. Come join us!

European Alternatives’ (EA) Biennial Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary from October 25th to the 29th with the ‘Convergent Spaces’ proposal in Matadero Madrid, Medialab Prado, Intermediae, CS La Ingobernable and Centro Centro. TRANSEUROPA proposes a series of conferences, workshops, artistic exhibitions, performances, screenings, concerts and political debates. The thematic axes of this edition address the crisis of European borders, proposes the new municipalism in European cities as a potential agent of change and the commons as a political alternative for new governance.

Organised by EA in collaboration with the Spanish collective Zemos98, the Festival is a counterbalance to the dominant discourses of crisis and threat of the unknown. Through art, culture and innovative practices, TRANSEUROPA proposes spaces for dialogue and learning for hundreds of activists from different European countries for an exchange with local citizens.

Speakers

Over five days more than 50 speakers will participate in TRANSEUROPA. Among them, the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, the philosopher Marina Garcés, Santiago Alba Rico, the Black Lives Matter activist in Denmark, Bwalya Sørensen, and the German Politician Gesine Schwan. German film director Jakob Preuss will present his new film When Paul Came Over the Sea on Thursday 26 at 7 pm at the Cineteca de Matadero, a documentary about the story of Paul’s journey, a migrant from Cameroon who passed through Spain before arriving to Berlin.

Exhibitions, art and thought

In the framework of TRANSEUROPA Matadero Madrid will host the exhibitions Europe as a Refuge and Artivism from the European Margins. Both exhibitions will open in the presence of the artists on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th October respectively.

In addition on Friday 27th Audiovisual Source Code will present If I were a black person in a film, by the journalist and president of SOS Racism Moha Gerehou, the live audiovisual performance IDRISSA: Everyday Borders by Metromuster with the Guinean singer Nakany Kanté and a DJ by MotoKiatu, mixing African rhythms with electronic music.

Workshops

Each morning 15 practical workshops will take place, addressing issues of integration and borders (Brexit: building trans-European perspectives or Community Strategies against institutional racism); racism (Top-manta: fight and activism of street sellers in Spain or Stop Islamophobia); feminism, data analysis and visualization, and cybersecurity. Collaborators for these workshops include: Carmen Castro, the collective Eutropian, and Stanislaw Strasburger.

10 years across Europe

Since 2007, TRANSEUROPA has evolved as an artistic, cultural and political festival organized transnationally by European Alternatives. EA is a civil society organization works through its pan-European network throughout the continent to promote culture, equity and democracy beyond the nation state. For the last decade, TRANSEUROPA has operated in a decentralized way, organizing simultaneous meetings in dozens of European cities in parallel to a major festival in a major city. This year, in addition to Madrid, the festival will be present through the TRANSEUROPA OPEN programme in Valencia, Lousame (Coruña), London, Belgrade, Berlin, Montenegro, Ghent (Belgium), Ludwigshafen (Germany), Maribor (Slovenia), Turku (Finland).

Photo by Dave Pinter

The post TRANSEUROPA/Convergent Spaces: alternatives for a Europe in crisis appeared first on P2P Foundation.

You can still be a part of it: Click here to join.

In cooperation with the Transeuropa Festival and MediaLab Prado, the assembly features 4 days of workshops, visits to local commons initiatives, debates, talks, art and parties in the heart of Madrid. An eclectic mix of commons activists from all over Europe will get together to discuss the commons and the future of Europe.

The European Commons Assembly starts on Wednesday (the 25th of October) and ends with a closing assembly on Friday (the 27th of October). Saturday (October 28th) will be filled with trips to local commoning sites around Madrid and exciting sessions organized by Transeuropa Festival in the afternoon.

Workshop themes include ‘Participatory Tools for Democracy’, ‘Right to the City’, ‘Law for the Commons’, ‘Data Commons and the Collaborative Economy’, ‘Food’, ‘Health and Leisure’, and ‘Solidarity as a Commons: Migrants and Refugees’.

Are you interested in the Commons?
Join us! Click here.

For more information about the program, click here.

For more updates, follow us here on Twitter or join the event here on Facebook.

We hope to see you in Madrid!

Reposted from the Commons Network newsletter.

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Anyone interested in survival in today’s Europe, should read this book.”

Srecko Horvat, Philosopher, DiEM25

This is the press release for European Alternative’s recently published Shifting Baselines of Europe. It’s a very readable tome which includes, among many outstanding contributions, an edited version of my interview with Ahora Madrid’s heads of Citizen Participation and Transparency. You can download the book from this link: Shifting Baselines of Europe.

European Alternatives: With contributions by Etienne Balibar, Ulrike Guérot, Gesine Schwan, Renata Avila, Barbara Spinelli, Andreas Karitzis, Lorenzo Marsili, Jonas Staal, among others, and interviews with city governors from Madrid to Naples. 

What if another Europe already exists? The new book of European Alternatives follows this question and explores a Europe beyond Neoliberalism and Nationalism. Etienne Balibar opens the book, asking for “Our European incapacity”. In her reply Ulrike Guérot reflects on what “Our European capacities” could be. Together they tackle the fundamental crisis underlying the European integration process, the missed opportunity to become a Union of Citizens by giving up on national sovereignty.

The publication is inspired by a meeting of 80 activists, researchers and artists from across the continent which took place in 2016. European Alternatives invited them to its biannual Campus to develop strategies for an open and democratic Europe. Many of the projects presented at the Campus are to be found in the book:  from the municipal level to the level of transnational media, from technology and counter-surveillance to a concrete proposal to revive the European refugee policy.

The book  proves that a shift towards a new way of thinking and doing politics is not only possible, but actually already happening.

About the Authors

European Alternatives works to promote democracy, equality and culture beyond the nation states. With offices in four European countries and a network of activists and local groups stretching to over fourteen, the organisation is unique in being at once a breeding ground for new ideas and proposals for politics and culture at a European level and in being a political and cultural actor with a truly transeuropean activity, staff and support base.

Daphne Büllesbach is Managing Director of European Alternatives and curator of Transeuropa Festival, a bi-annual cultural, political and arts event. She holds degrees in Political and Social Sciences from London, Paris and Cambridge.

Marta Cillero is responsible for Communications at European Alternatives. She studied media studies, journalism and communication in Madrid, Istanbul and Chicago, and has a background in gender studies.

Lukas Stolz is special projects collaborator at European Alternatives and previously worked as a campaigner with Democracy International. His research interest lies in the intersection between politics, cultural theory and art and he holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Witten/Herdecke.

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