House Magic: Squatted Social Centers Exhibition
Posted April 23, 2009 by jmacphee in Events
There's a giant new show about squated social centers opening at ABC Nno Rio in NYC. If you are in town, check it out. Read through the whole post here, there is a schedule of great looking films and events at the end:
House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence
exhibition at ABC No Rio
April 21 to May 10, 2009
evening events Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings
Exhibition blog here.
Exhibition events website here.
The social center movement in Europe will be the focus of a project exhibition at the Lower East Side cultural center ABC No Rio during later April and early May. Images and information, videos and discussion will engage the realities of this vital urban movement.
An outgrowth of political squatting, the social center in occupied vacant buildings was a key feature of the Italian Autonomist movement of the 1970s and '80s. Squats on the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1990s borrowed elements of the English and German social center models, including cafes, infoshops (library/bookstores), performance spaces and art galleries. These models also influenced the “infoshops” of the anarchist movement throughout the US. Across Europe, the often short-lived social centers became important organizing foci of the global justice movement during the first decade of the new century.
The House Magic exhibition will be an open structure, a channel for a continuous flow of information from the social centers themselves. Bulletins will be posted, banners will be painted, soup will be served. Video documentaries will be screened, and guests will discuss their experiences with social centers.
The social centers arose out of direct action squatting. In the new century, however, these actions have been less about housing, and more intended to create social, cultural and political space for action in the city.
In many cases, social center squatting is a response to gentrifying development in the city, an instance of "bottom up planning and architecture." The social centers are usually well integrated into the neighborhoods in which they are set up, and provide free space for cultural activities to take place. Many social centers work closely with immigrant groups, organizing, supporting and demonstrating to protect their rights.
From April 21 to May 10, we will be working the theme at ABC No Rio, processing and presenting information about the social center movement. A key node in global justice organizing, squatted social centers have sprung up in cities throughout Europe. They represent a new wave of activism, often highly theorized, with participation by both radical intellectuals and grassroots activists.Increasingly architects, urban planners and artists are joining political activists in this movement.
House Magic is the first step in an ongoing project which invites public participation as we share the stories and synthesize the lessons of the vivid life and often spectacular deaths of these temporary autonomous zones.
Among the centers and agencies past and present considered in the show are Bowl Court, Ramparts, CoolTan, Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS) and 56a in London, El Patio Maravillas, Seco, Laboratorio, and Caracole (Madrid), La Casa Invisible (Malaga), Krax City Mine(d), (Barcelona), ESC Atelier Occupato (Rome), Rote Floria (Hamburg), ROG (Ljubljana), and many others.
Films about squatted social centers and related questions will be screened on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, accompanied by discussions around a bowl of soup and bread – an evocation of the VoKü (Volxküchen, or people’s kitchen) of German and Dutch squats. A $5 freewill donation is requested to cover the cost of the films.
Schedule of Events:
First Week
Tuesday April 21
Germany -- German films to be announced
Guest: Michel Chevalier, Hamburg
Wednesday April 22
United Kingdom -- “Take Over,” directed by Jordie Montevecchi
The film follows a group of Brighton, UK, squatters who take over an old church.
Thursday April 23
Netherlands, Amsterdam – “The City Was Ours,” by Joost Seelen (1996; Dutch with English subtitles)
Amsterdam squatting movement, 1970s to 1980s; short subjects
Second Week:
Tuesday April 28
Spain, Barcelona -- Octavi Royo, "Okupa, Crónica de una Lucha Social" [Spanish & Catalan with English subtitles] Reflexión sobre el fenómeno de la okupación que empieza con el desalojo del Cine Princesa en Barcelona (1996) y termina en la actualidad; Dara Greenwald "Tactical Tourist" [English]; selected bangin' shorts from "Resistir es Crear: 10 años junto al Centro Social - Casa de Iniciativas de Málaga"
Guests: Dara Greenwald, Brooklyn, others
Wednesday April 29
Spain, Madrid -- "Laboratorio 3, Ocupando el Vacio" (66 min.; 2007; Spanish with English subtitles); music videos from Casa Iniciativas, Malaga
Thursday April 30
Italy – program to be announced
Third Week:
Tuesday May 5
The Art Squat – “Dada Changed My Life,” directed by Lou Lou and Daniel Martinez (2004)
about the Zurich art squatting action that saved the Cabaret Voltaire
Guest: Olga Mazurkiewicz (invited)
Wednesday May 6
Open Date
Thursday May 7
Denmark, Copenhagen -- “Christiania You Have My Heart,” directed by Nils Vest (62 min.; 1991; Danish with English subtitles)
talk with Rebecca Zorach
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