Academy of Radical Caregivers

How to be not too careful, but full of care? The ada_kantine is an island of carers in contested territory. The future of the site is uncertain, but care work in the kitchen continues. What collective practices have emerged here in the past two and a half years? And to what extent can care work be critical of the system? For two days, we will discuss, dream, and cook together, design concrete utopias and crazy plans, chop vegetables, put on theater, dance, sweep the floor, and care for ourselves. And where is the rebellion from the kitchen?

Childcare available on site (Friday 3-8pm / Saturday 9am-8pm).

Information at: maintenance-art@andpartnersincrime.org

Concept and idea: Nouria Behloul, Inga Bendukat, Eleonora L. Herder and Tim Schuster
Artistic Director: Eleonora L. Herder
Dramaturgy and research: Inga Bendukat
Political Strategy: Tim Schuster
Performative moderation: Nouria Behloul
Wall newspaper concept: Nouria Behloul
Film: Michelle Koprow
Phonothek of Radical Self-Care: Jana Bleckmann, Susanne Hübl, Sophia Igel and Johanna Steindorf
Graphics and design: Victor Gorelik, Elise Pixel and Tatiana Tverdohlebova
Creative Producer: Sven Rausch
Production assistant and dramaturgy internship: Joanna Plastrotmann
Public Relations: Tim Schuster
Awareness: Saeed Sedaghat and Subin
Childcare: The Collective
Music:
Screen printing: print now riot later
Risography wall newspaper: Victor Gorelik, Elise Pixel and Tatiana Tverdohlebova

In complicity with the ada_kantine and all ada_istas

With contributions from:

ignite! Transformative Justice Collective, Manuela Zechner, Anarchist Health Collective Bern, Bojana Kunst, Valeria Graziano & The Pirate Care Project, Grandhotel Cosmopolis Augsburg, Michael Trammer from the film 'Eigenbedarf – Leben auf dem Schweudersitz', PAH Barcelona, Gabu Heindl, among others.

Grand Hotel Cosmopolis Augsburg

The Grandhotel Cosmopolis is a civic-supported space that uses artistic and activist tools to create sustainable living spaces in the city. In concrete terms, this means that a café run primarily by volunteers, studio spaces for artists and activist groups, an extraordinary hotel, event spaces, and accommodation for refugees all work together under one roof every day, living a utopia.

Manuela Zechner

Manuela Zechner is a researcher, cultural worker, and facilitator. She is co-founder of the relatively new Common Ecologies School, conducts the Earthcare Fieldcast with Bue Rübner-Hansen, and has directed the Future Archive Project since 2005. She works at the intersection of feminism/care and ecology, edited the book "Commoning Care and Collective Power" in 2021, and is currently a postdoc in the MovE research project at the University of Jena.

Ignite! Transformative Justice

Why do we talk so much about rejecting the police in our contexts, yet still call them again and again? Or are we completely at a loss as to how to act without them? And why, even after all these decades of feminist struggles, do we still have no established concepts for dealing with interpersonal and sexualized violence? We believe it is essential not only to use our theoretical rejection of the police and patriarchy as a sticker motif, but also to develop a practice that seeks and develops alternatives. We want to find a way of dealing with violence in our contexts that is not based on the principles of punitive logic and state violence, and we also want to take responsibility for the circumstances that enable interpersonal violence, even in emancipatory communities.

Valeria Graziano – Pirate Care Syllabus

Valeria Graziano is a cultural theorist, educator and organizer, currently based at the Center for Advanced Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia. Over the years, she has been involved in numerous research initiatives across the cultural sector and social movements and collaborated with a number of international cultural institutions, including documenta14; Impulse Festival; MACBA; Arts Council of England and Van Abbemuseum. She is one of the convenors of the Pirate Care Syllabus (https://pirate.care). For a list of publications, see: https://hcommons.org/members/valerix/

Anarchist Health Collective Bern

We are a health collective from Bern, consisting of various people from the healthcare sector. We are all united by the desire for an inclusive healthcare system with low-threshold access and a multidimensional understanding of and for health. Among other things, we ask ourselves questions such as: How can postcolonial, anti-racist, and feminist attitudes and political stances be incorporated into our everyday work? But how can we also continually critically question these perspectives and our work and acquire new knowledge in order to develop new possibilities for action? For this reason, we also demand that issues such as structural forms of discrimination, interdisciplinarity, accessibility, equality, and hierarchy in the healthcare system be understood, reflected upon, and thus changed.

Bojana Art

Bojana Kunst is a philosopher, dramaturg and performance theoretician. She works as a professor at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Justus Liebig University Giessen, where she is leading an international master program Choreography and Performance. She was as a researcher at the University of Ljubljana and University of Antwerp (till 2009), and later guest professor at the University of Hamburg (2009 –2012). She lectured and organized seminars, workshops and laboratories in various academic institutions, theaters, artistic organizations across Europe, and worked continuously with the independent artistic initiatives, artists, groups and activists. Her research interest is contemporary performance and dance, arts theory and philosophy of contemporary art. She published Artist at Work, Proximity of Art and Capitalism, Zero Books, Winchester, London, 2015, and The Life of Art. Transversal Lines of Care, Ljubljana, 2021 (in Slovenian language).

Film: Sí se puede. Seven days at PAH Barcelona

The Platform for Affected People in Barcelona is a Spanish grassroots organization that takes direct action to stop evictions and advocates for housing rights. PAH was founded in Barcelona in February 2009 in response to the 2008 financial crisis. It has since become the main opposition to the government's housing policy and defends the right to decent housing for all. The activists oppose evictions due to foreclosure proceedings and founded an organization of mutual emotional, bureaucratic, and activist support. PAH has already prevented several evictions in Barcelona. The film "Sí se puede. Seven Days at PAH Barcelona" by Pau Faus chronicles the organization's daily life on any given week. The cameras focus on the organization's interior to show—besides the drama of the evictions—the enormous, invisible work that takes place within PAH. Spain 2014, Director: Pau Faus, 52 minutes

Gabu Heindl

Gabu Heindl is an architect, urban planner, and activist based in Vienna. Her architectural practice, GABU Heindl Architektur, focuses on public space and affordable housing. She teaches at the AA|Architectural Association London and, since September, has been a professor of Architecture, Urban Economy | Construction Economics and Project Development at the University of Kassel. Her most recent book is: Urban Conflicts, Radical Democracy in Architecture and Urban Planning (2020).

Phonothek of Radical Self-Care

Say no when something is too much
crying to friends and getting hugs
make an appointment in the calendar with yourself
get drunk and dance wildly
...is that care work for you? Or how do you actually take care of yourself? Have you ever asked yourself whether taking care of your own needs can be radical? Perhaps it's even an important contribution to a caring social coexistence?

With these questions in mind, we set out to ask self-care experts—not just those featured in shampoo commercials. We strolled through drugstores and social media feeds, discussed things with political initiatives and self-help groups, and chatted with our friends. In the Phonothek, we invite you to listen for yourself to how self-care, between a pure survival strategy, a plea for consumerism, and radical political ambition, raises new questions for a caring urban community.
The Phonothek is based on an artistic research project that operates at the intersection of performative sound art and feminist urban studies. The research collective currently includes Jana Bleckmann, Susanne Hübl, Sophia Igel, and Johanna Steindorf.

Film: Personal Use – Life on the Hot Seat

Ina, Max, Carina, and several friends are homeless. In the midst of the coronavirus-affected winter of 2020, they sometimes have to sleep outdoors. They say that municipal emergency shelters offer no prospects. In the face of the impending cold, left-wing activists initially attempt to transform vacant municipal properties into housing for the homeless with a publicly announced occupation. However, the police immediately clear the premises. Suddenly, a new opportunity to escape life on the streets arises. Activists have secretly opened another vacant property. The friends have genuine personal needs and become squatters. For over a year, various people have lived in the secret occupation as if on a hot seat, constantly fearing the loss of the stability that a roof over their heads provides.

The individual program items can also be attended individually.

Friday, October 7, 2022

9 a.m.: Start of kitchen shift

10 a.m.: Welcome

10:30 a.m.: Vegetable chopping & lecture by Valeria Graziano (video)

11.30 a.m.: Setting up tables

12.30 p.m.: Onboarding: How do I become an ada_ista?

1 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Lunch

3 p.m.: Reflection session

3:30 p.m.: Clean-up together & Grandhotel Cosmopolis Augsburg

5 p.m.: Working in the dining room & lecture by Gabu Heindl

6 p.m.: Phonothek for radical self-care

7 p.m.: FILM: Personal Use. Life on the Ejection Seat. Followed by a discussion with the
Director Michael Trammer

Saturday, October 8, 2022

9 a.m.: Start of kitchen shift

9 a.m.: Onboarding: How do I become an ada_ista?

9.30 a.m.: Welcome

10 a.m.: Vegetable chopping & lecture by Bojana Kunst

10 a.m.: Workshop Ignite! Collective Transformative Justice (ada_istas only)

11 a.m.: Setting up tables & GoBanyo: Project shower bus

1 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Lunch

3 p.m.: Reflection session

3.30 pm: Film: 7 Days at PAH Barcelona & Coffee and Cake

4.30 p.m.: Work in the dining room & lecture by Manuela Zechner

6 p.m.: Anarchist Health Collective Bern: Workshop on alternative health centers

8 p.m.: Cleanup & final round // ada stays!

The program is being held in collaboration with: Anarchist Health Collective Bern, Bojana Kunst, Gabu Heindl, GoBanyo – Duschbus, Grandhotel Cosmopolis Augsburg, ignite! Transformative Justice Collective, Manuela Zechner, Michael Trammer from the film 'Eigenbedarf – Leben auf dem Schweudersitz', PAH Barcelona, Phonothek radicaler Selbst_Für_Sorge, Valeria Graziano & The Pirate Care Project, among others.

There is childcare!

The complete program booklet with all information is available here:

The 'Academy of Caregivers' is a cooperation between andpartnersincrime and ada_kantine and is part of the long-term project MaintenanceArt by andpartnersincrime to link care work and art.

Supported by the Performing Arts Fund with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.

andpartnersincrime is supported by the multi-year funding of the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main.