21st OCTOBER
Decentralised events happening in different cities across Europe for the opening of TRANSEUROPA
We are organising decentralised events in different cities across Europe for the opening of the festival on Saturday, October 21st. Transeuropa unique approach aims to set a transnational, open and innovative cultural and political space, make grassroots and civic alternatives to political institutions visible, and foster network cooperation and mutual support. It serves as a point of convergence to exchange ideas, concepts and alternatives for a Europe in turmoil. In particular, we focus on three thematics, which will be at the core of Transeuropa Open:
> The city and democracy from below: all across Europe, we observe new forms of democratic governance at the local and city level (Ahora Madrid, Barcelona en Comù, the city of Naples, etc.). We believe that active citizenship empowers activists to run for city governments' elections and enables to connect to institutional realities and influence national governments and European institutions. How do cities and citizens platforms reinvent democracy in Europe? What are the recipes for success?
> Europe as commons: we believe in the right to the commons. Commoning relates to network-based cooperation and localised bottom-up initiatives that create self-managed systems satisfying important needs. These systems often work outside markets and institutions while pioneering new hybrid structures. How do the commons shape our communities today and invent new ways of reclaiming our autonomy over the decisions that affect our lives?
> Europe as a place of refuge: in the public discourse migrants and refugees are represented as a "threat" or "welfare abuser" and the "refugee crisis" is used as an excuse to hide a crisis of politics. We want to reclaim Europe as a place of sanctuary for refugees and of human rights protection both inside and at its borders. How to create opportunities of exchange between newcomers and the general public and how to create safe spaces that critically address xenophobia and racism?
OPENING EVENTS ACROSS EUROPE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21st
Messina (Italy) // Facebook event
Within the projects aimed at promoting citizens' participation and the shared use of the commons, the City of Messina has launched the participatory transformation of public spaces in some neighbourhoods situated at the outskirts of the city. Transeuropa Open Messina will bring together citizens from all these different neighbourhoods into one of the places that will be transformed in the next months, for a day of social and cultural activities promoted by the locals and in order to share their experiences in approaching for the first time participatory practices and the commons.
Maribor (Slovenia) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Maribor invites you to get informed and engage to shape Europe as place for Refugees! The event will be composed of a roundtable organised by Sama Goods with one of the main actors on migration and integration in Slovenia and will be followed by a networking lunch and sessions for thinking Europe as a place of sanctuary for refugees and of human rights protection both inside and at its borders.
Belgrade (Serbia) // Facebook event
Bottom-up initiatives bring large amount of energy in order to proclaim the Commons as an important factor of future life and as an important political factor, as well. Transeuropa Open Belgrade will debate about the ways in which the Commons are currently conditioned. Two roundtables will explore how Commons function through collaborative initiatives of culture and artists and how is it used to share knowledge and technology through self-organized communities.
Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Germany) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Ludwigshafen am Rhein invites you to take part of a transnational Ludwigshafen and to create with us a city of change in 2017. This festival of arts will invite young adults to debate current political challenges in the city of Ludwigshafen am Rhein and to spread out their visions of an open Europe, and address their opinions to local politicians by attending workshops and outside events.
Berlin (Germany) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Berlin will take shape as a "political party" offering different types of workshops and space for exchanging ideas. The central topic is related to the "commons" as an encompassing vision to explore in the local context with a transnational outlook. Spatially and temporally the party will start even before the party! People can join us on foot, by bike or on the S-Bahn to collectively reach the location where common action, critical discussion and crypto talk will be possible.
Lousame (Spain) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Lousame will take place in the Froxán Common Woodlands, recently recognized by the UN Registry of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas . The program is made up of traditional "happenings" such as the "roga" (communal work), "alvaroque" (communal meal), "magosto" (October chestnut roast gatherings) and "foliada" (communal musicking) to bring folk together and discuss current challenges such as rural depopulation, environmental destruction and extractivism, and grass-roots resistance through common land structures in a full day.
Turku (Finland) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Turku explores various facets of imagining, narrating and physically manifesting 'the Other' in contemporary European context. By the use of different community arts tools we invite our audience to challenge the topics of social injustice and inequality in everyday narratives and practices and encourage them to rewrite, reconstruct and finally to draw the concrete plans for transformations and changes in a form of live community dialogue.
Ghent (Belgium) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Ghent's workshop will bring people together across sport/art/activism fields around the theme of the commons, exploring the concept through a best practice in football. KAA Gent is the first and only club in Belgium, and one of the few around Europe, to have taken a commons approach to ownership, governance and structure. We will explore this commoning practice through the lens of sport to get us all thinking about the commons in and beyond the field of football.
Valencia (Spain) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Valencia will kick-off the first session of the Escola d 'Innovacio Civica (Civic Innovation School), which aims to create a co-learning space for civic innovation in Valencia. At the session of the school, participants will be part of a "Civic Talks", a CivicWise format to develop Collective Intelligence for the productive activation of territories. Participants are will share challenges and difficulties of their projects. These challenges will mark the first objective of a collaborative learning process with the aim to propose collective solutions.
Herceg Novi (Montenegro) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Herceg Novi's event "Why waitin'?" aims to present and promote innovative practices coming from grassroots initatives fighting for women rights. Through discussions about feminism in Europe and reviewing the status of women in Montenegro, as well as through workshops, we want to show that micro actions to improve gender equality are still possible through creative bottom up citizen initiatives.
London (United Kingdom) // Eventbrite page
Transeuropa Open London presents an afternoon of art, politics and spoken word. Join us to discuss how we overcome the divisions of our fractured societies and build hope in a better future.
– Brexit revealed the scale of the divisions in British society. In many states across Europe the same divisions persist. How can we overcome them?
– How do we protect the rights of non-UK EU citizens in Britain and UK citizens in Europe? How do we build a progressive and internationalist vision of migration for all global citizens?
– What is our alternative vision for Europe today?
Amsterdam (Netherlands) // Facebook event
Transeuropa Open Amsterdam invites you to an evening full of workshops, games, inspiring speeches, reading-corners, fabulous food and live music @Plantage Doklaan. In cooperation with partners like DiEM25 Nederland, Fair City Amsterdam, Europese Beweging and TNI our event will focus on the commons, transformative cities and refugees in Europe.