Dreaming of the Commons. How can we keep collective practices alive?
With Fleur Courtois, Silvia Mesturini, Marie Moreau (co-founder of the now defunct Bureau des dépositions), Erika Sprey, Mihnea Tănăsescu & Agency
This event ran on 14.12.2024. But wait, there's always more at Kanal! Check out the calendar.
For a year now, the Brussels collective Agency has been busy "dreaming" its future, building a "praticauthèque" [library of practices] and compiling a growing archive of "boundary things" on intersection and outer limits of the law, activism and art. These processes and practices, activated through assemblies and events, are the legacy of artist Kobe Matthys, who passed away last year. But how do we keep them going?
- As part of
- World Histories of the Commons
- Date
- 10:00 — 19:00
- Rates
-
Free
On this eventful day, we take our first and collective shot at "dreaming up" Agency by weaving together the different lifelines that make up its ecosystem. Together with Marie Moreau and the Bureau des dépositions, a structure committed to challenging repressive migration policies in France by attempting to redefine immigrants' rights through copyright and co-authorship, we imagine what might happen to the Bureau after a court ruling prevents its co-creation. With Erika Sprey we try to get a taste of what the future consultation and activation of Agency's library of practices may look like, presenting several dream-like cases in which local cosmologies clash with (post)modern ideas of commodification and enclosure. This exercise sparks a collective dialogue in which Sprey joins Mihnea Tănăsescu to examine how we may grant agency to more-than-human entities, drawing inspiration from several rights of nature cases, and gauging their implications for the custodial care of the commons. We conclude with an experimental session led by Fleur Courtois and Silvia Mesturini, in which we use the philosophical tool of Tarot Souriau to identify challenges and reimagine the future of Agency in pragmatic ways.
The day is hosted at Agency’s Pratiquothèque, Rue Théodore Verhaegen 18, 1000 Brussels. Coffee is served from 09:30, with the session on the Bureau des dépositions starting at 10:00. Lunch is served at 13:00, followed by the Dreamtime Agency session at 14:00 and the Tarot Souriau reading at 17:00. The event is free and will be held in English and French. Please fill in this form to book your spot. The first session (Bureau des dépositions) and the second session (Dreamtime Agency) are limited to 40 people, the tarot reading is limited to 15 people.
Credits and bios
- With
- ,
- ,
- ,
- ,
- &