24 May 2024 until 25 May 2024
Chapter three, convention
Usufructuaries of earth
The convention in the context of the project Usufructuaries of earth is a two-day gathering that summons different practices of non-expropriative userships in relation to land, housing, social reproduction, agriculture, and knowledge.
Please find information about the open call for the working sessions during the convention below.
Convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht together with artist Marwa Arsanios, chapter three of the project Usufructuaries of earth is a two-day convention that gathers artists, as well as other thinkers and social actors, to share and learn on usufruct as a way of undoing property from the regimes of privatization that perpetually usurp the earth’s resources for the interests of a select few. Along with chapter one of the project—an exhibition with works by Arsanios, and chapter two—consisting of a federated structure of reading groups and a slow-growing reader and learning curriculum on BAK’s online publishing forum Prospections, the third and culminating chapter of Usufructuaries of earth inquires into practices of ethically sharing the earth’s usufruct, and the ways to transfigure regimes of ownership into communal userships.
Taking place on-site at BAK on 24 and 25 May 2024, the convention brings together feminist, decolonial, and ecological practices to undo possessive imaginaries of earth, conjuring instead usufructuaries as mutually reciprocal userships of and with earth. “Usufructuaries” (from the Latin usufructus, referring to the enjoyment of common userships) is here a discursive and practical tool to undo (rather than conceal) and subvert (rather than negate) the idea of property that’s based on private ownership. Artists, farmers, women’s and indigenous rights activists, ecologists, legal scholars, political economists, geographers, and community organizers gather to align and learn from each other’s lived and imagined experiences. These include communal, non-expropriative userships in relation to land, housing, social reproduction, agriculture, knowledge, and culture. Speaking from situated geographies of abolitionist, Black, and feminist struggles, alongside legal perspectives on decolonizing property law and collective land reclamation as responses to generations of dispossession, Usufructuaries of earth connects the propositions of usufruct in ways that challenge the deeply entrenched ideology of private property that has come to be accepted as immovable bedrock of today’s global contemporary political formation.
The convention program is composed of two parts. The first part on 24 May 2024 consists of four working sessions, which involve invited contributors, as well as participants selected through an open call. The four working groups are: “Beyond Value,” a working session that rearticulates value away from its prevalent understanding linked to neoliberal capture and possession convened by artist and philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva and anthropologist Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona; “Taking Debt Out of the Closet,” on organizing feminist resistance by waged and unwaged household and precarious care workers in defiance of financial debt, convened by political theorists and activists Verónica Gago and Lucí Cavallero; “Germinating Resistance” on indigenous and radically collective agrarian microresistances against macro, state-backed, corporate privatizations and settler-colonial dispossession, convened by Samanta Arango Orozco and Arelly Collazos of Grupo Semillas; and “Failing, Dreaming, Doing: rehearsing abolition,” conjuring alternate imaginaries of life and labor with earth beyond the regimes of racial enclosure, convened by arts collaborative MADEYOULOOK and agrarian researcher, organizer, and educator Yvonne Phyllis.
Taking place on-site at BAK on 24 and 25 May 2024, the convention brings together feminist, decolonial, and ecological practices to undo possessive imaginaries of earth, conjuring instead usufructuaries as mutually reciprocal userships of and with earth. “Usufructuaries” (from the Latin usufructus, referring to the enjoyment of common userships) is here a discursive and practical tool to undo (rather than conceal) and subvert (rather than negate) the idea of property that’s based on private ownership. Artists, farmers, women’s and indigenous rights activists, ecologists, legal scholars, political economists, geographers, and community organizers gather to align and learn from each other’s lived and imagined experiences. These include communal, non-expropriative userships in relation to land, housing, social reproduction, agriculture, knowledge, and culture. Speaking from situated geographies of abolitionist, Black, and feminist struggles, alongside legal perspectives on decolonizing property law and collective land reclamation as responses to generations of dispossession, Usufructuaries of earth connects the propositions of usufruct in ways that challenge the deeply entrenched ideology of private property that has come to be accepted as immovable bedrock of today’s global contemporary political formation.
The convention program is composed of two parts. The first part on 24 May 2024 consists of four working sessions, which involve invited contributors, as well as participants selected through an open call. The four working groups are: “Beyond Value,” a working session that rearticulates value away from its prevalent understanding linked to neoliberal capture and possession convened by artist and philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva and anthropologist Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona; “Taking Debt Out of the Closet,” on organizing feminist resistance by waged and unwaged household and precarious care workers in defiance of financial debt, convened by political theorists and activists Verónica Gago and Lucí Cavallero; “Germinating Resistance” on indigenous and radically collective agrarian microresistances against macro, state-backed, corporate privatizations and settler-colonial dispossession, convened by Samanta Arango Orozco and Arelly Collazos of Grupo Semillas; and “Failing, Dreaming, Doing: rehearsing abolition,” conjuring alternate imaginaries of life and labor with earth beyond the regimes of racial enclosure, convened by arts collaborative MADEYOULOOK and agrarian researcher, organizer, and educator Yvonne Phyllis.
WORKING SESSIONS
Friday 24 May 2024
11.30–16.00 hrs (with lunch by b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN*)
1 “Beyond Value” convened by Denise Ferreira da Silva and Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona.
2 “Taking Debt Out of the Closet” convened by Verónica Gago and Lucí Cavallero.
3 “Germinating Resistance” convened by Samanta Arango Orzoco and Arelly Collazos of Grupo Semillas.
4 “Failing, Dreaming, Doing: rehearsing abolition” convened by Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho and Yvonne Phyllis
A small number of participants can join the working sessions (maximum capacity of 12 people per session) through the following open call: Please send an email to opencall@bakonline.org by midnight 8 May 2024, wherein you introduce yourself, indicate which working group you would like to join and and a short written motivation of no more than 200 words. For more info on each of the working sessions and to apply, please see here.
Following on from these working sessions, during the evening of 24 May and afternoon–evening 25 May 2024, a public program of convivial propositions, conversations, sonic interludes, and commensal moments will take place. The contributors to the convention and the attending public narrate, learn, and share vocabularies, approaches, methods, and imaginaries that center regeneration over ecological destruction and collective usership over individuated profit, forming transgenerational alliances between usufructuaries of earth that have gone before, are happening in the present, or are yet to be.
11.30–16.00 hrs (with lunch by b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN*)
1 “Beyond Value” convened by Denise Ferreira da Silva and Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona.
2 “Taking Debt Out of the Closet” convened by Verónica Gago and Lucí Cavallero.
3 “Germinating Resistance” convened by Samanta Arango Orzoco and Arelly Collazos of Grupo Semillas.
4 “Failing, Dreaming, Doing: rehearsing abolition” convened by Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho and Yvonne Phyllis
A small number of participants can join the working sessions (maximum capacity of 12 people per session) through the following open call: Please send an email to opencall@bakonline.org by midnight 8 May 2024, wherein you introduce yourself, indicate which working group you would like to join and and a short written motivation of no more than 200 words. For more info on each of the working sessions and to apply, please see here.
Following on from these working sessions, during the evening of 24 May and afternoon–evening 25 May 2024, a public program of convivial propositions, conversations, sonic interludes, and commensal moments will take place. The contributors to the convention and the attending public narrate, learn, and share vocabularies, approaches, methods, and imaginaries that center regeneration over ecological destruction and collective usership over individuated profit, forming transgenerational alliances between usufructuaries of earth that have gone before, are happening in the present, or are yet to be.
PUBLIC PROGRAM
Friday 24 May 2024
16.30–21.00 hrs
Saturday 25 May 2024
13–21.30 hrs
The public program is open to everyone, but it is advised to pre-book your ticket through Eventbrite in order to assure access. A ticket for 1 day costs €6, a ticket for both days costs €10. Some soup and snacks prepared by b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN upon solidarity donation.
On 25 May, some elements of the program will be in Spanish with live Spanish-English interpretation. If you wish to make use of this, please bring your own headphones.
Keep your eyes peeled for the full program forthcoming here.
16.30–21.00 hrs
Saturday 25 May 2024
13–21.30 hrs
The public program is open to everyone, but it is advised to pre-book your ticket through Eventbrite in order to assure access. A ticket for 1 day costs €6, a ticket for both days costs €10. Some soup and snacks prepared by b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN upon solidarity donation.
On 25 May, some elements of the program will be in Spanish with live Spanish-English interpretation. If you wish to make use of this, please bring your own headphones.
Keep your eyes peeled for the full program forthcoming here.
Confirmed convention contributors to both working sessions and public program include: Joud Al-Tamimi (artist and curator, Berlin), Samanta Arango Orozco (grassroots educator and member of Grupo Semillas, Quindío, Colombia), Marwa Arsanios (researcher, educator, and artist, Berlin and Beirut), Bahaleen Collective (artist-led research collective, Amman), Clara Balaguer (cultural worker and curriculum builder and BAK co-convener Community Portal, Utrecht and Rotterdam), Asia Bazdyrieva (art historian, Berlin), Aya Bseiso (architect and curator, Amman), Brenna Bhandar (critical legal theorist and scholar, Vancouver), Lucí Cavallero (activist and researcher, Buenos Aires), Iliada Charalambous (artist, Rotterdam), Arelly Collazos (guardian of afrodescendent seeds and member of Grupo Semillas, Cauca, Colombia), Luigi Coppola (artist, Brussels and Lecce), Philippa Driest (artist, Rotterdam), Lama El Khatib (researcher and cultural worker, Berlin), Patricia Enriquez (researcher and activist, Pinay sa Holland, GABRIELA, Rotterdam), Denise Ferreira da Silva (artist and critical theorist, Vancouver), Layal Ftouni (researcher and educator, Utrecht), Veronica Gago (activist and theorist, Buenos Aires), Ruth Wilson Gilmore (abolitionist scholar and activist, Lisbon/New York), Stefano Harney (writer and educator, Brasilia and Cologne), Ola Hassanain (artist, Amsterdam and Khartoum), Maria Hlavajova (BAK general director, Amsterdam/Utrecht), Carmen José (illustrator, activist, and educator, member of Feministas en Rotterdam), Grace Lostia (comrade b.ASIC a.CTIVIST k.ITCHEN and co-convenor Community Portal, Utrecht), Wietske Maas (BAK curator of research and publications, Amsterdam/Berlin), Dina Mohamed (researcher and BAK convener Fellowship of Situated Practice, Utrecht), Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho (artist collaborative MADEYOULOOK, Johannesburg), Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona (filmmaker, anthropologist, and researcher, Bologna), Yvonne Phyllis (agrarian, land, and labor researcher, organizer, and educator, Johannesburg), Sahar Qawsami and Nida Sinnokrot (architects and co-founders Sakiya, Ramallah), Philip Rizk (writer and filmmaker, Berlin), Shela Sheikh (researcher and educator, Paris), Khadija Tahiri-Hyati (president for cleaners for Dutch Federation of Trade Unions, Rotterdam), Lena Wilderbach and Elif Kaya (Jineolojî activists and members of Jinwar).
Convention, chapter three of Usufructuaries of earth, has been conceptualized by artist and researcher Marwa Arsanios and BAK convener of research and publications, Wietske Maas and in conversation with all convention contributors.
Convention, chapter three of Usufructuaries of earth, has been conceptualized by artist and researcher Marwa Arsanios and BAK convener of research and publications, Wietske Maas and in conversation with all convention contributors.
Long-Term ProjectPropositions for Non-Fascist Living
with: Marwa Arsanios
Usufructuaries of earthChapter three, conventionConvention: working sessionsConvention: public programChapter two, reading groups and online publication Chapter one, exhibition
