Binnenkort: SECOND RITCS ARTS & POLITICS SYMPOSIUM

On 28-29-30 November 2018, from 11am to 6pm, the Second RITCS Arts & Politics Symposium will take place at the Open Academy in La Centrale in Brussels, in the frame of the exhibition Resistance (www.centrale.brussels). The language will be English, the access free.

The First Symposium, which took place in January 2018 at the RITCS, under the title The Trouble With the State, was centred on the question whether an alliance of reformists and revolutionaries could be envisaged.

In the Second RITCS Arts & Politics Symposium, entitled One Struggle ?, the question will be asked whether, and how different forms of contestation today are connected to each other. This question will be dealt with from a different theme on each of the three days, both in discussions with a number of invited theoreticians, writers and artists, and in presentations by dozens of students from the various Master programs at the RITCS.

Towards a World Assembly?

On Wednesday 28 November 2018, Towards a World Assembly? will be the focus for the conversations and presentations, coordinated by philosopher Dieter Lesage. Is the multitude today the subject par excellence of the contestation and its meetings - whether it is the Occupy Movement and its occupation of Zuccotti Park in New York, or the Arab Spring and its manifestations at Tahrir Square in Cairo - the places where a new world takes shape? Are these assemblies a radical alternative to the institutions of representative democracy? Or should these settings become even more representative? The expositions with these questions will include the theory of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt (Assembly), as well as the work of theater maker Milo Rau, who will give a lecture on his project General Assembly on November 28, 2018 at 11am. In the afternoon, from 2pm until 6pm, MA students of RITCS will present a series of short presentations under the title 2000 Years of Protest Around the Globe.

Towards a World Assembly?
Wednesday 28 November 2018
From 11am to 6pm
La Centrale Brussels
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Decolonizing the Mind?

That there is a serious problem with regard to the representativeness of our democratic institutions and that this problem is the object of necessary contestation, will be one of the discussion points during the talks and student presentations on Thursday 29 November 2018, coordinated by dramaturgist and cultural theorist Geert Opsomer. They will be devoted to postcolonial forms of resistance and contestation around the question Decolonizing the Mind? and, among other sources, depart from the work of the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe (Critique de la raison nègre). Guest speaker on November 29, 2018 at 11 am will be Belgian artist Vincent Meessen, who will present his work One Two Three, which will be discussed with curator and researcher Bambi Ceuppens. In the afternoon, from 2pm until 6pm, MA students of RITCS will engage in talks with artists Pitcho Womba Konga and Raven Ruëll, as well as present a ‘Message to Rachida’.

Decolonizing the Mind?
Thursday 29 November 2018
From 11am to 6pm
La Centrale Brussels
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Eco-feminism versus the Anthropocene

On Friday 30 November 2018, the third and final day of the One Struggle symposium, coordinated by philosopher Lieven De Cauter, will be devoted to the theme Eco-feminism versus the Anthropocene. The focus will be on the convergence between feminism and ecology. Against the background of the contestable and contested notion of the “Anthropocene”, the new geological era dominated by Man as a species, this convergence is more than ever topical if not urgent. After all, the theory of the Anthropocene is based on a unified (hu)man who marches through history as “his-story”, as Isabelle Stengers puts it aptly in her talks and in her book In catastrophic times. As T.J. Demos in Against the Anthropocene has convincingly demonstrated, the notion of humanity as the subject of universal history obscures carbon-based capitalism as the main cause of climate change. Donna Haraway is pleading for other names and other approaches in her book Staying With the Trouble. On this final day, from 11am on, all these issues will be discussed with philosophers Isabelle Stengers and Benedikte Zitouni. As during the other days, the final word will be to RITCS master students who will present artistic works and practices that are characterized by crossovers between feminism and ecology.

Eco-feminism versus the Anthropocene
Friday 30 November 2018
From 11am to 6pm
La Centrale Brussels
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