Collective Joy in Resistance

Community-based protest

Collective Joy in Resistance X Earth Artivist Labs 

We want to encourage the development of new possibilities for social protest through radical imagination and shared care. The year 2024 will be characterized by major political discussions on climate justice and the far right in Europe. In the midst of this scenario of political upheaval, we are creating a space for joyful activism to co-create innovative forms of protest and affirm alternative ways of living.

SOHO in Ottakring and Brunnenpassage join forces to offer a program in which art becomes a tool for political practices that build new possible worlds in the here and now, new forms of activism out of the joy of being together to confront the fear produced by the violent practices of colonial modernity that steals and takes lives with impunity in order to extract land, resources, labor and energy. Let’s move together to form the artistic resistance front of Vienna.

Collective Joy in Resistance

Idea and concept: Susana Ojeda
With: Andrea Ancira García, Bita Bell, Luan Dannerbauer, Olivia Golde, Zoe Gudović, Dafne Moreno, Nina Sandino, Laura Garcia Sobreira and Afro Rainbow Austria

Workshops:
13.4., 15-19 hrs
Venue: Klima Biennale Festivalarea, Nordwestbahnhof
Nordwestbahnstraße 16, 1200
Meeting Point: In front of the ticket office

11.5. | 7.9. each 15-19 hrs
Venues: SOHO STUDIOS and public space

Participation: Please register at info@sohostudios.at

We want to encourage the development of new possibilities for social protest through radical imagination and shared care. The year 2024 will be characterized by major political discussions on climate justice and the rise of the far right in Europe. In the midst of this scenario of political upheaval, we are creating a space for joyful activism to co-create innovative forms of protest and affirm alternative ways of living.
We invite different activist groups and all those who want to build on generosity, tenderness and care. When the system aims to turn us into sad consumers, we will rise up, dance, sing and be strong together.

Each gathering is dedicated to community building and promotes collective activism, working joyfully and creatively with the means of dance, music, textile art and graphic & design on the topics of climate justice and the social aspects of climate protection and democracy.

• Coming together to prepare graphics and visual material
• Coming together to politicize our favorite dances
• Coming together to decolonize our bodies through dance
• Coming together to design our costumes for resistance through joy
• Coming together to politicize cooking and eating together

Earth Artivist Labs 

Idea and concept: Susana Ojeda

Workshops:
11.4. 18-21 pm
26.4. 18-21 pm
3.5. 17-21 pm

Presentation at StrassenKunstFest:
Sat, 8.6.2024

Venues: Brunnenpassage
Participation: Please register at anmeldung@brunnenpassage.at

In our open lab sessions, we welcome neighbors, artists, activists and all those passionate about fostering positive change to jointly develop an artistic/activist action centered around questions of climate justice, decoloniality and environmental racism. The co-creative artistic work supported by artist Susana Ojeda is based on stories, narratives and experiences of the participants and can result in a performance, installation, soundscape, film work or any other form of artistic manifestation that resonates with our collective vision.

Each session builds upon the insights gained and the connections forged in previous gatherings – including the “Kollektive Freude im Widerstand” sessions at SOHO Studios. The resulting collaborative creation will be presented on June 8th at the StrassenKunstFest.

Please send 2-5 sentences about yourself and why you want to participate in this collective artistic project to anmeldung@brunnenpassage.at.

The events are taking place in cooperation with Brunnenpassage and as part of the Vienna Climate Biennale.

Participant Artists Collective Joy in Resistance:
Susana Ojeda, anthropologist, filmmaker, and activist, explores decolonial and eco-feminist themes, delving into connections with more-than-human beings and honoring ancestral knowledge through short films, installations, and readings. As a feminist decolonial activist and co-president of the Austrian Association of Women Artists (VBKÖ) since 2023, she actively intertwines art and activism.

Andrea Ancira García, editor, writer, and researcher, explores the intersections of art and politics, focusing on translation’s role in shaping communal perspectives on life and memory. Co-creator of tumbalacasa ediciones, she investigates archives’ affective economies in generating alternative narratives. A fellow of Jumex Contemporary Art Foundation, she is a current PhD Candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Bita Bell is a dance artist and composer with a BA in music composition and a MFA in dance. Her artistic-activism is reflected in her work as a community organizer and teacher; such as leading the monthly BIPOC only contact improv jams in Vienna. She is currently in the 5th cohort of the THIRD Artistic Research program at DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam University of the Arts.

Luan Dannerbauer (no pronouns) has been writing, illustrating and crafting in Vienna since 2018. Luan studies art and cultural studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Vienna and deals with forms of design in print media as a resistant practice.

Olivia Golde is a writer who loves to makes zines. she experiments with DIY and non-profit-forms of publishing. since 2015 she is part of the collective ‘PS – Politisch Schreiben’, a network and a literary magazine. Currently she lives in vienna and studies at the academy of fine arts.

Zoe Gudović, born 1977 in Belgrade, explores space, body, and voice through art. Her Toilet installations question intimacy, borders, and violence. As Drag King – Zed Zeldić Zed, she tackles the representation of queer bodies. In her show Ženergija on Radio Orange, she amplifies voices from the margins, documenting social change. A lesbian artist, feminist, and culture manager, she navigates the art world, focusing on class issues. Based in Vienna since October 2021.

Dafne Moreno has been navigating the interstices of dance, music, choreography, storytelling, drawing and performance in Vienna since 2010. She seeks to create spaces for migrant magical realism by evoking poetic images inspired by the Latin American imaginary. She combines dances, drawings and poems that invite us to imagine the monstrous, the fantastic and the supernatural from my migrant subjectivity that keeps mythical thoughts among dancing devils that conjure up another time, sing it, imagine it and bring it to Europe to the rhythm of the one who remembers and misses it.

Nina Sandino (she/they) is a Nicaraguan Architect and movement Artivist. Their practice focuses on Afro indigenous queer futurism and the transmission of ancestral communal knowledge. Working for holistic resistance, where rest, pleasure and joy work as radical tools for personal and collective empowerment.

Laura Garcia Sobreira, MMag., studied conducting at the University of Rio de Janeiro and guitar with Odair Assad at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She conducted the first Brazilian guitar orchestra, an electric guitar orchestra in Rio de Janeiro, and ensembles like “Chiquinha Gonzaga.” Advocating for women composers, she actively fights patriarchal violence against women as an activist in StoP (Stadtteil ohne Partner Gewalt).

Afro Rainbow Austria (ARA)
Afro Rainbow Austria, an Organisation founded by and for queer people of African descent in Austria, aimed at establishing an inclusive and interactive platform.
ARA stopNchop plays a crucial role in recognizing the intricate connections between food, community, cuisine, and culture. One of our primary focus is on safeguarding the culinary heritage of the African Community, aligning with Afro Rainbow Austria’s commitment to creating and maintaining safe spaces for queer Africans in Austria. Using food as a vital tool, we engage in communal practices that involve coming together for celebrations, educational activities, meditation, grief processing, and simultaneous healing.

©Cati Krüger