Entrance free, registration required due to limited seating:
reservations@newworldsummit.org
The New World Summit, in collaboration with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht University, Utrecht; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Brussels/The Hague, presents New World Summit: Stateless Democracy. The New World Summit is dedicated to constructing “alternative parliaments” for stateless political organizations that find themselves excluded from democratic processes.
New World Summit: Stateless Democracy is a three-day assembly that explores the possibilities of uncoupling the practice of democracy from the construct of the nation-state. Core speakers are representatives of the Kurdish revolutionary movement, which in 2012 declared Rojava, the northern part of Syria an autonomous “stateless democracy” based on principles of self-governance, gender-equality, and communal economy.
The summit takes place at a time of rising ultranationalism, excusion of refugees, the strengthening of the War on Terror, and the emergence of the so-called Islamic State, resulting in nation-states declaring martial law, increasing their surveillance apparatus, and enforcing political exclusion in the name of “defending democracy.” In response, this summit brings together stateless and autonomist movements from all over the world to explore the potential of stateless democracy as a transnationalist paradigm that opposes state oppression in all forms, and to invest in a new emancipatory politics of the 21st century.
For this sixth summit a temporary parliament is built in the aula of Utrecht University. It was on this site that the Union of Utrecht was signed in 1579, which was to become one of the foundations of the Dutch state. The parliament is thus also a historical intervention, reaching back to the very origins of the Dutch state to engage its alternative in the form of stateless democracy: a space to confront our current crisis and occupy the imaginary of a new, common world.
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Program:
Day I: Failed Democracy.
29.01.2016, 7-10 PM
Contributors include: Nancy Hollander (legal representative of Chelsea Manning and Mohamedou Ould Slahi); Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Pirate Party Iceland). Chaired by Maria Hlavajova (director BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht)
Day II: Stateless Democracy!
30.01.2016, 1-8 PM
Contributors include: Amina Osse (representative Democratic Union Party, PYD, Rojava); Dilar Dirik (Kurdish Women’s Movement); Quim Arrufat (Popular Unity Candidacy, CUP, Catalunya); Jodi Dean (political theorist and writer); Leila Khaled (Popular Liberation Front of Palestine, PLFP); Jennifer McCann (Sinn Féin, Ireland); Ilena Saturay (National Democratic Movement of the Philippines). Chaired by: Joost Jongerden (academic and writer); Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei (writer); Sana Soleiman Elmansouri (World Amazigh Congress)
Day III: Future Democracy?
31.01.2016, 1-8 PM
Contributors include: Richard Bell (artist, Aboriginal Tent Embassy); Emory Douglas (artist, former Cultural Minister Black Panther Party); Meike Nack (The Foundation of Free Women, Weqfa, Rojava); Sutharajan Nadarajah (Tamil Eelam); Simon P. Sapioper (Republic of West-Papua); Vivian Ziherl (Frontier Imaginaries); refugee collective We Are Here; Barcelona en Comú. Chaired by: Jolle Demmers (academic, Center for Conflict Studies); Radha D’Souza (academic and activist); Chris Keulemans (writer and journalist)
Partners:
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Centraal Museum Utrecht
Utrecht University
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO)
Financial Partners:
The Art of Impact, Amsterdam
Stichting Democratie en Media, Amsterdam
Stichting DOEN, Amsterdam
K. F. Hein Fonds, Utrecht
Promoveren in de Kunsten, Amsterdam
PhDArts, The Hague/Leiden