Synapse I: Rethinking Institutions

Over the course of OMONOIA‘s duration, it hosts several events or synapses. The first one, taking place on 18 and 19 November 2015, aims “to consider the common ground between groups of scholars, activists, self-managed organisations, cultural producers, and other civic subjects involved in urban practices of commoning, solidarity, urban welfare, and participatory democracy.”

On 18 November 2015, BAK artistic director Maria Hlavajova contributes to the second panel, Session II: Rethinking Institutions. “The Athens Biennale acts both as host organisation and mediator between artists, cultural producers, and local initiatives and institutional space where notions of self-organisation, cooperation, sustainability, and grassroots democracy will be experimented. The aim is to develop new institutional configurations and alliances between cultural producers and art institutions across Europe.”

The speakers in this session are: Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna, Maria Hlavajova, Leo Panitch, Emily Pethick, Hilary Wainwright, and Amalia Zepou (moderator).

Suggestions from the archive

Learning

10 May, 12.00–12 May, 18.00 2023

Complaint Making: Setting Up Conflict-Positive Spaces for Community Building Praxis

Vishnu would like to share feminist governance tools (FGT) focused on three of many tiers in community building praxis. FGT is based on the values of equity with an emphasis on creating psychologically safe environments, drawing on the use of consent. Decision-making processes, setting up conflict-positive spaces, and complaint-making as diversity work will form the body of this three-day training. Rooted in Vishnu’s autho-ethnographic practice, this work will explore the power dynamics that impact decision-making processes.

Community Portal

Performative

10 May, 12.00–12 May, 18.00 2023

The Diamond Mind II

In this dance training, the people will use a one-minute film of their own movement as material for a booklet—a sixteen page signature—that distributes their presence, their gesture, as an act of EQ. 

Community Portal

Learning

3 May, 12.00–4 May, 18.00 2023

Too Late To Say Sorry? 

A bad apology can ruin a friendship, destroy a community, or end a career. In this workshop, we will investigate the impact of apologies on our relationships and our worlds. Why and how do we make apologies? What can giving and receiving apologies teach us about values and integrity? Should you apologize for something you don’t really feel sorry for? We will explore conflict and how we like to be in conflict with others. We will dive into our own boundaries. We will seek to understand how honoring limits becomes an act of building (or freeing) better worlds capable of holding so many, many more of us.

Community Portal

Learning

28 April, 12.00–29 April, 18.00 2023

Huisje, Boompje, Beestje (D.A.F.O.N.T.)

In this rare masterclass, retired teacher and artist Glenda Martinus teaches participants a thing or two about painting with Microsoft Word. Martinus shares tips, tricks, and secrets on how to use this software to its unexpected potential as a drawing tool. Participants learn how to draw three basic objects—a house, a tree, and an animal—in a seemingly innocent exercise that perhaps contains more layered social commentary. Drawing the worlds we desire does not require expensive tools or education, simply a curiosity to understand how the monster’s tools can topple the house of the master.

Community Portal