Open Study Sessions on Extractivism with Anca Benera, Moira Hille, Annette Krauss, Andrea Popelka, and students
An event series in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Free admission.
If you are interested or have any questions, please feel free to contact us at: andrea.popelka@kunsthallewien.at
The Open Study Sessions will be held in English, you are welcome to join in at any time.
This practice-based seminar is situated in the Master in Critical Studies program at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but open to all who are interested. Together we explore the theme of extractivism and various artistic approaches to it.
Dario Salvetti (works council representatives and worker at GKN) is a guest in this session. The former automotive supplier factory GKN in Campi Bisenzio near Florence became a European symbol for socio-ecological transformation from below. Not only did the approximately 500 workers refuse to accept their sudden layoff in the summer of 2021 and have been occupying the factory for over two years, by holding a work meeting ever since. They also established a wide alliance with Fridays for Future, scientists and many other social movements, with which they jointly developed a plan for the social-ecological transformation of the factory. Instead of car components, the future plan is the production of cargo bikes and solar panels – as long as the financings are secured. A shareholder model that would enable workers, the local population and the global climate movement to make joint decisions would be a laboratory for democratic production under ecological conditions.
The seminar is anti-hierarchically structured. In Open Study Sessions we will not only deal with the content, but also with the way how we gather and discuss the topic.
At the end of January, students will present a larger Open Study Session, first at the Academy of Fine Arts and then at Kunsthalle Wien.
On Wednesday, November 15, 7 until 9:30 pm, a panel discussion takes place at University for Applied Arts. On the example of GKN, it wants to seek out possibilities of linking climate and labor struggles, and alliances with science and art, it discusses challenges and contradictions, and tries to understand the situation of employees in fossil fuel companies.