The historian Tove Soiland asks the philosopher Birge Krondorfer about her experiences with Frauenhetz, an institute for feminist education, culture and politics founded in 1996. Birge Krondorfer is a founder member. They will discuss the feminist self-understanding of the founders and the political orientation of a feminist academy in an age of gender as well as a series of concrete questions, for instance financing and user profile. The occasion for the discussion is the project to found a feminist educational institute in Zurich.


Sabine Hagmann (Kunsthaus Aussersihl, Zürich) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Didem Özbek (PiST Interdisciplinary Project Space/Istanbul, www.pist.org.tr)

art at street level

How is the project related to the neighbourhood? How is the project organised: Who is running the space, how much time and money is spent on it? How is the financial situation? Are salaries being paid? Is there any public funding or private sponsorship? How do you connect to a local and international art scene?


Georgette Maag (Kunsthaus Aussersihl) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Herbert Maier (KünstlerWerkstatt L6 (im Kunsthaus L6), Freiburg im Br.)

The KünstlerWerkstatt L6 runs a well-equipped print studio with its own exhibition room in Kunsthaus L6, under the same roof as the public gallery of the same name, studios, a guest studio and rehearsal rooms. Herbert Maier will present the association and its activities. They enrich the local art scene by exhibiting the work of international artists. Questions of financing and cooperation with the city authorities and in-house will be discussed, as well as networking and anchoring in the art world and strategies for the Kunsthaus Aussersihl.


Bianca Miglioretto (Community Radio Officer von/of Isis International-Manila, Philippinen, http://www.isiswomen.org) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with mit Kaushalya Perera (Freiwillige/volunteer) und/and Upeksha Thabrew (Koordinatorin/Coordinator von/of Women Support Group, Sri Lanka, http://www.wsglanka.com)

What are the goals and the activities of the two organisations, how do they support LBT (lesbians, bisexual women and transgender persons)? What does the real-life and workaday situation of lesbians with their various gender identities look like in Sri Lanka and the Philippines? This covers a wide array of aspects: employment, coming out, pressure exerted by family and society to marry, imposed dress codes, acceptance of tomboys (butch), the invisibility of femme lesbians, engagement for LGBT rights, the community and lesbian discos.


Cora Piantoni (Künstlerin/artist, Zürich) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Anna Holzscheiter (Politologin/political scientist, London)

Discussed are the life and working conditions of au pairs and domestic staff in different countries in comparison with the situation in Switzerland: the in some degree “ok” situation in Switzerland and the conditions in England where there are predominantly people from the new EC countries. Starting point is the historical situation of the housemaid, which up until the 1950s came to Switzerland mainly from the neighbouring countries Germany and Austria (like Piantoni’s own great-grandmother). Today, in the course of globalisation, women from the most different kinds of countries and life conditions (e.g. academics with their own families) work as domestic staff in Switzerland, up until today mainly for economic reasons but also to get to know a foreign culture.


Andreja Kuluncic (Künstlerin/artist, Zagreb) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Marianna Garin (freie Kuratorin/free lance curator, Malmö)

Our conversation during the skype meeting was a continuation of some previous topics we started to talk about: our own living and working situations; about the ways and strategies one can/should/have to develop for the production of art projects which are critical and in different ways political; and about the process of developing a project itself, after you completed the first two points (the project budget and your own everyday expenses). We also talked briefly about the Argentinean model and about the group of foreign workers self-organised in Ljubljana, Slovenia with whom Andreja Kuluncic is starting a project.


Reartikulacija (Marina Grzinic, Stas Kleindienst, Sebastjan Leban und/and Tanja Passoni, Ljubljana, www.reartikulacija.org,) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Kontekst Galerija (Ivana Marjanovic und/and Vida Knezevic, Belgrade, www.kontekstgalerija.org)

Reartikulacija is a self-organised interventionist platform and journal for art, theory and politics from Ljubljana (established by Marina Grzinic, Stas Kleindienst, Sebastjan Leban and Tanja Passoni). Kontekst gallery is a self-initiated gallery space in Belgrade (initiated by curators Vida Knezevic and Ivana Marjanovic). The talk was proposed by Reartikulacija in order to discuss self-education and self-organisation and to put light on the attack on Kontekst Gallery in Belgrade on 7.02.2008. On that day the exhibition "EXCEPTION, Contemporary art scene from Prishtina" whose organizers were cultural-artistic NGOs from Belgrade and Novi Sad (Kontekst and Napon) was forced to close at the evening of the opening. The reason was that nationalistic, patriarchal and chauvinistic forces in Serbia saw their cultural-racist stereotype about “uncivilized Albanians” being strongly contrasted by articulated artistic positions from Prishtina’s contemporary art scene. The scheduled opening as well overlapped with the declaration of independence of Kosovo on 17.02.2008. Grzinic and Marjanovic discuss self-organization and the closing of the exhibition through the writings of the late feminist theoretician and activist Zarana Papic from Belgrade who presented an excellent analysis of the Serbian reality that she termed as „turbo-fascism“ in 2000.


Mirjam Wirz (Künstlerin, Fotografin/artist, photographer, Flash Institut, Vilnius) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Iván Guzmán de Rojas (Mathematiker, Informatiker/mathematician, computer scientist, La Paz)

This conversation discusses Guzmán de Rojas’ research on the trivalent logic of the Aymara population in Bolivia: in contrast to the binary logic of Aristotle (right/wrong), trivalent logic proceeds from the premise of a broad field of non-fixed possibilities and uncertainty, which is perhaps not dissimilar to the approach and essence of self-organised structures. Specifically, the automatic translation program “Atamiri” created by Guzmán de Rojas will be looked at, which as an online forum allows people to exchange with others in their respective language. Unlike “chat” software, where participants must be online, communication through Atamiri is asynchronic. Exchange is possible between people who are separated by time, place and language.


Aurélie de Lalande (Künstlerin/artist, Bern, www.transitpassengers.net) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Gargi Sen (Direktor/Director der/of Magic Lantern Foundation, New Delhi, www.magiclanternfoundation.org)

This 1 hour-long conversation in English between Delhi-based Gargi Sen and Aurelie de Lalande gives an overview on the independent documentary film scene in India: How it all started, its various phases of development and mostly why and how documentary filmmakers started to organise themselves as a movement, and the challenges and questions this raises.


Hynek Bures (www.transitpassengers.net, Künstler, Bern) im Gespräch mit PRAXIS. Institute for Participatory Practices (www.praxisindia.org, New Dehli)

Shalini Randeria (Professorin für Ethnologie/professor of ethnology, Universität Zürich) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Achyut Yagnik (Menschenrechtsaktivist, Journalist und Leiter von SETU, einer basisorientierten Nicht-Regeirungs-Organisation (NGO) in Ahmedabad Gujarat, westliches Indien / human rights activist, journalist and director of SETU, a grassroots NGO in Ahmedabad Gujarat, west India)

The discussion focuses on the increasingly precarious living conditions of the poor in rural India, a situation resulting from state neo-liberal policies. The groups affected are diverse, including landless day labourers, fishermen, foresters and indigenous communities as well as workers in the informal sector and temporary internal migrants. What are the specific problems confronting women and children in these communities? The basis for these groups’ livelihood is threatened on the one hand by forced resettlement and expropriation undertaken by the state as part of infrastructure projects (e.g. construction of dams and harbours, extending road and rail networks). On the other hand, the privatisation and commercial exploitation of the forest, water resources and coastal areas is destroying their way of life. What political and legal possibilities for making their voice heard and asserting their rights are available to these marginalised groups? What role do NGOs play in organising resistance against this precariousness eroding the living conditions of the losers of globalisation in India? How are religious minorities specifically affected by these processes?


Chris Regn (Bildwechsel-Dachverband für Frauen/Medien/Kultur, Hamburg, www.bildwechsel.org) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Kate Henderson (Burnout Films/Bildwechsel, Glasgow) und/and Eva Kietzmann (Institut für Existenzforschung/Ladyfest/Bildwechsel-Agentin, Berlin; zur Zeit bei ufa in Warschau/Warsaw, www.u-f-a.pl)

We discuss forms of organisation, living circumstances and working conditions. We are interested in connections and collaborations even with long distances in-between and the respectively assumed inherent relation between art and politics.


Saskia Holmkvist (Künstlerin/artist, Stockholm) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Anya Kamenetz (Autorin/author, New York, anyakamenetz.blogspot.com)

Anya Kamenetz is a free-lance writer also known for her book “Generation Debt“ published in 2006. Her concerns are focused on the economy of the young generation in the US of today taking loans to finance studies and later internships. What if the growth of unpaid internships is bad for the labour market and for individual careers?


Saskia Holmkvist (Künstlerin/artist, Stockholm) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Bettina König (Fairwork, Berlin, www.fairwork-ev.de)

Bettina König founded “Fairwork” in Berlin 2004, a non-profit association working to change the politics around internships. This work is mainly done by drawing media attention to cases, discussing with the Federation of German Trade Unions, politicians and the employers association. The aim is to install a long-term balance between the requirements of the labour market and the needs of the graduates and that there should be no internships but traineeships or “real” jobs.


Nicole Niedermüller (Radio LoRa, Zürich, www.lora.ch) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Luna Paz (Radio Perola, Caracas, www.radio-perolafm.blogspot.com)

To what extent are community radios suitable as places of non-commercial, self-organised media distribution which can be utilised by grassroots groups? This is the question Luna Paz from Caracas/Venezuela and Nicole Niedermüller will consider. Both are active in the community radio scene and they will exchange views and ideas on independent radio work, the divergent frameworks within they operate and the possibilities of social intervention. This focus will also entail issues such as counter public spheres and participatory possibilities for marginalised social groups.


Andrea Knobloch (Künstlerin/artist, Düsseldorf) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Medea Hoch (Kunstwissenschaftlerin/art historian and theorist, Zürich)

The life and work of the Swiss artist, architect, dancer and pedagogue Sophie Taeuber (1889-1943) cannot be adequately described by simply stringing together the various professions she pursued. Always pragmatic, with ironic distance she acquiesced to conventional classifications which were completely alien to her artistic thinking. The conversation between Medea Hoch and Andrea Knobloch will use this example of an extraordinary personality to discuss the possibilities of self-determination and independent positioning in the art context as well as examine how applicable Taeuber’s strategies are in contemporary circumstances.


Folke Köbberling, Martin Kaltwasser (KünstlerInnen/artists, Berlin) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Jakub Szreder (Soziologe und Kurator/sociologist and curator, Nowa Huta)

Taking as their starting point the exhibition “The Futurism of Industrial Cities” (curated by Martin Kaltwasser and Jakub Szreder, 2006/2007), which examined the planned cities of Nowa Huta (Poland) and Wolfsburg in terms of their virtual futures and featured “zrob to sam”, a work by Folke Köbberling that presented three self-organised local groups from Nowa Huta on advertising billboards, Folke Köbberling and Jakub Szreder discuss the influence that ideology, globalisation and religion can have on self-organisation and how they both how they both organise their own cultural work.


Eva Schumacher (Frauen Dienstleistungs-, Gewerbe- und Kulturzentrum Zürich AG, Zürich) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Eva Hug (Verein snart, Zürich)

Besides the various organisational forms self-organised projects take, the conversation between Eva Hug (Verein snart) and Eva Schumacher (board director and project coordinator for the Frauen Dienstleistungs-, Gewerbe- und Kulturzentrum Zürich AG) focuses on the tension between self-exploitation and the debate about economic issues. The three women from snart have set themselves the goal of earning part of their livelihood in the future by staging exhibition projects and providing cultural mediation, whereas the Frauen AG aims to provide the necessary infrastructure for entrepreneurial women in the “Wirtschaft im Franz” located in Zurich’s third district.


bankleer (Karin Kasböck, Christoph Leitner, KünstlerInnen/artists, Berlin) im Gespräch mit / in conversation with Sophie Hope (arbeitet zusammen mit Sarah Carrington als Kuratorinnenteam B+B / works in collaboration with Sarah Carrington as the curatorial team B+B, www.welcomebb.org.uk, London)

bankleer and Sophie Hope talk about the contradictions which artistic work can produce in self-organised, political activist contexts. At issue here is ideological and neo-liberal misappropriation, strategies and tactics of evasion and refusal, censorship in the context of state funding, responsibility and trust, waste of energy and exerting influence, futurology and apocalypse. They will back up their theses with examples from their own practice.