Re-enchanting The World with Silvia Federici
26, 28 and 29 October
Ghent University / Vooruit / OFFoff Art Cinema + Kunsthal Gent
On 26, 28 and 29 October, Gent University, Vooruit, OFFoff Art cinema + Kunsthal Gent and are joining forces to host a multi day event with feminist activist, writer and teacher Silvia Federici, renowned for her research and activism at the intersection of women’s, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial struggles. Silvia Federici will join online while we will gather physically at OFFoff art cinema / Kunsthal Ghent and Vooruit.
On Monday 26/10, a film selected by Silvia Federici will be on the program at Art cinema OFFoff: Night Cleaners, with a video introduction by Silvia Federici and artist Jesse Jones (Syllabus).
On Wednesday 28/10 Silvia Federici will give a streamed lecture that you can attend physically in Vooruit’s theatre, or follow online: Rethinking and Restructuring Social Reproduction In times of Racist Violence and Global Epidemics. Engagement Gent meets at Kunsthal Gent that evening, where the live stream will also be available.
On Thursday 29/10 Silvia Federici will join us for an intimate online workshop (deadline for participation closed on 2 October.) Contrary to previous announcements, the workshop will take place entirely online. In small groups, we aim to build a toolkit in relation to the urgent questions of this moment of global crisis and opportunities for a new common living environment. With a shared reading session, a digital dinner during which (food) stories are shared, an extensive contribution by Silvia Federici and even a live virtual babysitter. (More info below.)
Organisers: Omar Jabary Salamanca (ULB), Julie Carlier (UGent), Siggie Vertommen (UGent), Danielle van Zuijlen (Kunsthal Gent), Jesse Jones (artist).
Corona measures will be followed strictly.
—-
Workshop with Silvia Federici: 29 October, 17:00 — 23:00
Max 30 participants, online, apply by 2 October
We invite scholars, artists, and/or activists in Belgium with an interest in feminism, anti-racism and/or agro-ecology for an evening of joyful militancy* on how we can collectively re-enchant the world**, and re-imagine and re-build communal infrastructures of life and social reproduction. Via shared reading session, a digital dinner during which (food) stories are shared, an extensive contribution by Silvia Federici, we aim to build a toolkit in relation to the urgent questions of this moment of global crisis and opportunities for a new common living environment.
* On Joyful Militancy, afterword, Beyond the Periphery of the Skin, Silvia Federici, 2020
** Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, Silvia Federici, 2018
Covid 19 and the measures that are being taken to stop this pandemic are firmly affecting the lives of peoples and communities in and across Belgium, albeit not in even ways. As our homes are transforming into permanent zoom-offices and home-schooling units, there is a politics of labour emerging from the pandemic that deepens historic inequalities of class, race and gender. Women are still bearing the brunt of the domestic and care work on top of their other work shifts, while the non-teleworkable work of cleaning hospitals, stocking supermarket shelves, and nursing sick patients- often performed by people of colour, is mostly undervalued and precarious despite being deemed ‘essential’. Poorer urban communities who have less access to private gardens and swimming pools and are dependent on the public sphere for survival and leisure, are increasingly subjected to police violence and surveillance.
As Covid 19 is enforcing new enclosures of public services and spaces, we urgently need new commons to re-organise our care, health, housing, food and life in general. During this transdisciplinary workshop with Silvia Federici we will use the lens of social reproduction (i.e. the work of keeping people alive and healthy on a daily and intergenerational basis) to understand and resist the graduated ways in which a supposedly gender- and colour-blind virus affects and targets communities in and across Belgium.
If you would like to participate in the workshop, send us a short bio and motivation with examples of the themes you would like to discuss via Google Form by 2 October.
