The Pergamon Museum in Berlin houses original, monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus, all relocated from Turkey. There is controversy over the legitimacy of the acquisition of the collection. It has been suggested — even demanded– that the collection be returned to Turkey. In fact, the KW Institute of Contemporary Art sponsored a piece called The Recovery of Discovery on this very issue. Sounds like the sort of thing Occupy Museums should look into.

Ishtar Gate from the Market Gate of Miletus, one of many Turkish landscape-sized pieces taken and deposited in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.

But first there is a problem: the museum is not free. A few years ago, the museum had free Thursdays, but now everyday is an 18 Euro day. How can we bring 25 people into the museum at such a cost? School groups get in for free. The solution is obvious. We will found a university.

And so the first part of the Pergamon Museum Action comes into fruition. We found the Autonomous University of New York City. We send the museum a letter:

Subject: Urgent: Ancient Greek Studies Class visit

Dear Sirs/Madames,

Our Ancient Greek Studies Course will be visiting Berlin only for a short time in our travels through Europe. We would be very excited if you would accept our visit to Pergamon Museum. For our students in their present studies of the Ancient Greek Treasury it is mandatory for them to actually see the Pergamon Altar as it is so important the subject matter we cover.

We would appreciate your expediting of our request to visit Pergamon Museum on the 11th or alternatively on the 12th of June, 2012.

Autonomous University of NYC

info@autonomousuniversityofnyc.org
contact address:
AUoNYC
51 MacDougal Street
NYC, NY 10012
Tel:             646-436-7795      
www.autonomousuniversityofnyc.org

The Pergamon accepts. We make IDs. It is time for a field trip!

We enter the Pergamon Museum and begin studying the stolen artifacts. Like our action at the American Museum of Natural History, we begin with a tour: unobtrusive, conversational, inviting. Students gather on the steps of the Pergamon Altar. Class begins:

First, one of our professors teaches us a song in Ancient Greek. We join in the course: “Shit is fucked up and bullshit is fucked up.” Tourists start to take photos. They come in closer to see what is happening. Students begin sharing their research: museums artifacts are stolen as a matter of course from other countries and other cultures; art is part of colonialism; these relations continue in world politics today.

As the class proceeds, student presentations get louder, more disruptive. A pregnant woman gives birth to an Occupy Wall Street banner. Mic checks begin. Fliers are passed out. The guards look on, talk, but do not intervene. Perhaps because they have called the police, who will find us outside.

The Autonomous University class/Occupy Museums leaves the Pergamon Altar with the banner in a procession, chanting a hybrid OWS-Ancient Greek song. Once we leave, so do all the tourists. For the first time during opening hours, the Pergamon Altar is empty except for a lone guard at the top.

Outside, a small GA forms, and the following text is read:

Ceremony at the Pergamon Altar for Restitution of Art and Culture to the Commons!

 

There is a famous treasure in Berlin known as the Pergamon Altar. This giant relief sculpture from Ancient Greece depicts the battle between the Giants and the Olympian gods known as the Gigantomachy. It was originally hewn from stone by workers from a culture that celebrated victory and ethics. In the late 19th century, the Pergamon Altar was displaced from its original site in present-day Turkey and brought to Museum Island in Berlin. Since then it has been used and abused as a symbol- a representation of power by both Germany and the USSR. The Pergamon Alter has come to symbolize the displacement and occupation of culture by the powerful elite. A call has been issued for its return to Turkey.

 

We are here to question and confront the issue of colonization and misappropriation of art and cultural heritage. We stand in solidarity with the Turkish population in Berlin suffering from gentrification. We will use the alter to bless victory for horizontality, sharing, and non-ownership.

 

On a personal note, the best part of this action for me is the “logical” conclusion to found a university to circumvent high museum admission prices. One could put work, time, and energy into fundraising or working for money to pay the museum, or one could put work, time and energy into establishing an educational institution so that museum objects are accessible to all of its students. I am always skeptical of the idea that education can fix social ills on a grand scale– yet the Autonomous University of New York did not function as a site for education, but as an institution that allowed a move away from privatization and towards putting culture into a commons.

The second part of the action raises more questions for me, and makes me uneasy. What does it mean for a group of activists, none of them Turkish, to re-appropriate an artifact in the name of inappropriate appropriation? How do tactics challenge or recreate what we criticize? What work does causing a fuss in a museum do? What are the terms of success for an action like this?

– Max L.

In Solidarity with Turkish Community – Kotti Protest, gentrification of Kreuzberg – Berlin, June 9, 2012. Police provocation to disturb a peaceful demonstration.
- Jolanta

Guest post by Carolina, a member of M15 from Spain who was invited to the Berlin Biennale like Occupy Museums. This open letter was originally posted in Take the Square on May 31, 2012 when Carolina left the Biennale.

Some weeks have passed since the #OccupyBiennale started. The framework was/is a difficult one: a contemporary art exhibition, probably the most famous one in Europe, most of the artists would pay to be there to have an extra line in their CV that adds, “Berlin Biennale.” However the #occupy and #15M movements  were invited, not because of their artistic skills but because of the political process they were living worldwide

There was quite a controversy about participating in an art event, the fear to be “exhibited”, the fear to be swallowed up by a “commercial” event, when art becomes a consumer article and forgets its function of questioning reality and when transgression is even more marketable than art; “people” it seems are so bored in society that they need “adventure”, so art has to sell that adventure. This was the starting point at the Biennale, #occupy | #15M, visitors expected to share an “adventure”, that thousands of people are living in their squares, the process of civil disobedience going on in our time.That was the risk and the challenge that was to be overcome when finally the invitation was accepted.

To say that the #occupy|15M movement has been successful all over the world is something very difficult to assert. Spain has shown that #15M has really changed society, perhaps the changes are not still visible, but they are so deep, that we can say it is a turning point in Spanish society as there is no way back to the previous situation. The #Occupy movement over in the US may have had the same experience, the awakening of society, that regaining  of people’s consciousness and their capacity to decide for themselves, things that seemed dead or numb. But in most of the other countries it has been a “well intended” movement that has not managed to transcend into large public support or concrete gains.

The challenge, however, was very tough: a clear motivation and strong driving ideas were needed, and it was particularly difficult to find them in an artificial environment, with an artificial goal, with no core group that could help facilitation and with not real bonds that could tie people to the #Biennale square.

The institution 

When you’re out of the movement, watching it evolve for a few minutes or hours, you do not get a sense of how it came to be; you get no hint that the spectator is not a spectator, but a part of the show. One can imagine building a wall, how ironic would that be in Berlin, one brick at a time, and building it as a separation from what is not wanted (corruption, domination, mental slavery, exploitation of remote, unknown, corrupt invisible hands), and as well as a new means for expression (painting, writing…).

So to presume that people coming to the exhibition would not “look-at” the #occupy |15M movement space expecting something to “happen” was a wrong way to focus public participation in the Biennale. It was wrong to believe people would simply join because they had the need to, to expect that a building could reproduce the process of the squares as public space, to think that things “would” happen naturally when the process itself was artificial, not in a pejorative sense, only to describe that it needed a particular input from the people occupying the space. This input, or driving force, happened organically as people organized in squares as there was a moral or political (maybe even material) motivation.

At the same time, the intention of the curators to stay out of the process has not worked as planned. It is not possible to play in both sides, to present a self-organized space with constraints because it really belongs to the exhibition set; the relation of power between curator and “occupy” could not be diluted, every now and then it appeared in the scene and no reaction to that situation ever occurred.

The Asambleas

Asamblea madness, as something untouchable, fixed, un-redoable, is the belief that an Asamblea is something else rather than a tool (among others) for coordination and decision-making. To pretend that in an assembly it is necessary to have everybody that may have participated in previous ones, is not being inclusive. Anyone that passes by can make a decision, and there is no need to wait for a “specially implicated” person as he or she is a “leader”. If people can attend, great and if not they have to assume it, that leads sometimes to difficult situations, but it is how a square works, under the belief that everybody is a part of it, and can participate. The other essential thing is Trust. Decisions must be taken even if we are not present, one has to rely on the group, on the decision taken during an Asamblea where people discuss and add nuances and arguments. We can’t fossilize decisions to what was decided in the past, the building of a square is something alive, continuously changing, and as decisions change, needs change, there is nothing that can be guaranteed forever except that every decision can be re-thought.

In the Biennale, the scheduled Assembleas have not been respected in the first weeks. Nobody attended, so that gives a clue of the commitment towards the collective building process, nobody had the need to talk about the conflicts, to look for solutions, the international status of things, or anything, but in the name of assemblies decisions were not accepted.

The fascism

Although it may seem quite unbelievable, there has been some fascist behaviour among some of the so-called occupiers, that don’t represent what actually happens in the squares, where respect and active listening takes place. Instead of this we found a lack of respect, and even mobbing done to people who has joined this “artificial” square, making difficult to stay and actually work on things rather than playing the game of exhibition. The result of this attitude was people leaving the #OccupyBiennale, feelings of hostility, invitations to leave, an example in the mailing list , a mail with subject that read: “Exclusion of antisocial, arrogant, anti-art, anti-individual occupy guest.”

Followed partially by:

“Permanently trouble making people who dont accept the decision of former assemblies, talking bullshit, standing on an arrogant, non flexible position should be sent back.We need constructive people and no trouble makers. you are here in Germany where law and order rules. Even in the german Occupy Movement we have law and orders decided by former assemblies. If you are not able to accept those former decisions you better go back home.”

A week after and under pressure, it was explained that it was “sarcasm”, is this believable? Who can accept this behaviour? Where is the sarcasm? We saw something present through all the process of the #OccupyBiennale, people that come are “guests”, “visitors” or even treated as “enemies”, there is a “we” , strong identities, to the “we” belong the best, the winners, so the #occupy instead of being a space with no identities, no discrimination, comes out to be one more identity and exclusive.

This shows another fact that fascism is present, when it comes to remain silent and don’t do anything about these kind of comments, specially in a country with such a background full of deportations, borders, where the wound still emerges and where certain topics are still sensitive. But the problem is  not to have a fascist, there are many, and we’ll have to cope with that, the problem is that nobody else reacts: fear?

The fear

This fear lead us to several uncommon behaviours as remaining silence when intolerable behaviour took place, to respect the established roles of being “guests of an institution and having to respect the rules even if they make no sense in our context, fear to discuss and debate when there is censorship around certain topics being talked, restricting certain debates just to Germans because the “outsiders” would not understand the German context. Instead of understanding that building a global movement means explaining contexts, decoding ideas that can be obvious for the local people but not for the others, but a wall appeared once more. A “we” and a “you” were created, dialogue stopped flowing, one is right, the other is wrong, no exchange is possible, positions are fixed. This cannot be part of a  #square, where there are no previous truthful statements, everything is under construction, everything can be questioned and solutions are built based on the discussions taking place.

An individual or collective process?

A thing that happened during the organization of the “event”, was  that there was not a thought given to the building of a commons: of a common space, of a common working place, of a common goal. The square was a container, a check-in of projects that were individually shown at an exhibition. Why and how did that happen? Perhaps it’s not an easy question to answer, while our mouths are full of words like collective, collaboration, our practices are very distant from them. In the end there was a lack of political maturity in the group, the tension between being or not being part of the whole exhibition lead to the situation of finally presenting the “visitors” with an exhibition, a model of what is supposed to be a square which is very far from reality.

People belonging to the so called occupy movement, with more voice than the rest, seem interested mainly in putting their name on the walls of a famous art exhibition that will guarantee some extra rewards, once it is added to their CV and forgetting that one of the basic principles of the movement is to avoid personal profit.

Social networks present a fundamentally historical perspective, involving people and their relationships. The success of the Spanish Revolution takes root in the social fabric of the population. One can’t just decide to MAKE THE SQUARE and expect this social fabric to be of any quality. Building networks take time, effort and participants. But the OccupyBiennale square–a literal one, enclosed between strong walls, doesn’t invite anyone from outside to its physical boundaries. One example is the intervention of Jeremy Zimmermann from La Quadrature du Net, who talked about ACTA in front of a dozen “outsiders” who were all already in the know. Nobody else was interested. Maybe because
they already understand the scope and consequences of ACTA? A collective would have respected the “guest” and given him a chance to transfer this knowledge.

Conclusions

The construction of an artificial square has failed but it’s good to see why and understand the process. First of all, to escape the logics of exhibitions and institutions is not possible; we can interact with them, we can do some lobbying so that some things change, but what is not possible is to think a process of true freedom inside them (as the ones lived in the squares). A square has no limits, no restrictions, while a exhibition has, even if there is a different purpose, to establish a border between what is the “proper” exhibition and the #occupy space. When problems appear, such the lack of space, they have to be solved within the predefined and limited space, without it being possible to “disturb” other parts of the exhibition. The concept of what role was played by every part in the exhibition cannot be questioned, and finally there is a curatorship, so the #occupyBiennale had it’s cage, and when it was found that it didn’t accomplish the needs of all the “occupiers” a “battle” for space started that could only be solved by having people leave.

An inclusive space could not be made, not just for this, but also for the lack of political views and aims of the people most involved, for the incapacity of setting up discussions about conflicts, but also solutions, experiences, a “lecture” based space, where no collective intelligence could be felt. There is a lot to be learned about collective processes, when the people are in the squares, where a high percentage of the population is involved, it means a deep social change. In the end this means changing social rules, it means changing our own positions, even when we may think they are the best and obviously so, it opens a space for questioning the unquestionable, but those kind of changes we never know when or why they happen, they are spontaneous and unpredictable.

Meanwhile we should be able to remember that we are not playing games, nor playing assemblies, nor squares, people are suffering. The causes are many, injustices due to social welfare being destroyed and they will get worse and affect even to “rich” countries, people is dying daily fighting for freedom and food. Activism is not a goal, something to be done in our spare time, the goal is to change and disrupt the logic of the system, to build a new world, not to carry out a process with no goal. A global movement is taking place outside, many countries are really searching for alternatives and for the first time in History knowledge is more distributed, there are tools to put it in common, technologies to facilitate information, communication and decision-making, and they can be on our side if we defend them, so while the old system is collapsing, we have the opportunity to build a global change and a better world for everyone. Shall we do it?

To forget fear we have to feel free and this did not happen in the #OccupyBiennale.

@carolina

On June 5th, Occupy Museums hosted an open discussion with workers at the BB7 to look at the 3 Million Euro budget and how money was allocated and spent. Over 40 people showed up, 10-15 of which were Occupiers.

The meeting opened with a game where we asked people to stand up if the following questions applied to them:

• Are you a temporary worker? Part-time, Full-time?
• Are you a permanent worker? Part-time, Full Time?
• Do you have more than one job?
• How many people are artists?
• How many people are financially supporting someone else (child, parent, friend, etc)?

We then moved to open discussion. To ensure anonymity (we were not certain if people would feel comfortable speaking in front of employers) we asked participants to write questions they had about the budget on a piece of paper. We read some of these questions aloud and opened stack to discuss them.

Almost immediately the guides spoke up and asked why they only make $6.50 Euros an hour.  They also asked why they haven’t been given catalogs or an overview of the art in the Bienniale when they are responsible for explaining the work to the visitors.

The director of the KunstWerk did not attend the meeting (although she said would) because of a dentist appointment. Therefore many of the questions around who decides how money is allocated could not be answered. Many people said that questions around the budget are very complex, and that it is difficult to understand.

There was a call for a meeting to have the director of the KW explain the budget to us so that we could begin to understand the resources available to BB7.

Additionally, the concept of labor also came up, and the difference between hourly pay and salary pay. We learned that Joanna Warsza makes 1400 Euros per month as assistant curator, and Artur Zmijewski makes 3000 Euros per month. Joanna stated that the guides probably make more money than her per hour because she works all the time. She also acknowledged that there are other forms of compensation that she receives, such as a free apartment, and cultural capital. Artur said very little.

There was also a call for the presence of the Occupiers to be seen as labor, as they are “animals in a spectator zoo.” The occupiers also commented on the bad quality of food in the kitchen, and the use of one shower to share with over twenty people sleeping in the space.

There was also a proposal for a kind of social experiment where we tally all the money everyone is receiving at the BB7 and divide it equally amongst one another. There was an amendment to that proposal where we first do a workshop where we breakdown what that looks like, and take everyone’s person situation into account.

At the end of the meeting, we decided that a follow up meeting with the Director of the KW would be arranged.  As members of Occupy Museums we discussed the necessity that we should not lead this meeting, that the guides and staff should decide the structure and facilitate it. Natasha is offering facilitation training OWS style, for anyone who might want it!

The entire meeting lasted until about 12:45, and the Bienniale was scheduled to open at 12. Because of this, the exhibition opened late, and without guides for that period of time.

During the course of the day, many guides approached members of Occupy Museums (including myself) with positive feedback, and excitement about the meeting. There is a desire to act, and change the situation they are in!

June 3rd: Art Leaks Open Assembly

I was happy to be in Berlin for the first Assembly by Art Leaks, an international group who aims to expose injustice and economic exploitation in the arts by “leaking” stories that expose institutions on the internet. I learned that the group also formed out of a mutual event and shared problem between artists, the Bucharest Biennale.

A group of five of us from Occupy Museums came to the meeting, which was housed in a warehouse right along the former border between East & West Germany. (Side note: the building itself was actually part of the Berlin wall. I was told that it is one of the few remaining East German official buildings still owned and managed by the original owner. Apparently there was a massive redistribution of buildings after the wall went down by West Germany— I don’t fully understand all the details. The building contains artist studios, and a gallery called Flutgraben as well as the project space where the talk was held.)

The Art Leaks meeting began with presentations from members in lecture format, then additional presentations via skype, and then an open discussion.

During the open discussion, people offered different ideas for concrete measures to be taken. There was a desire for charts that act as guidelines for institutions to offer a fair wage, the desire to define a set of demands, the challenge of building international solidarity when working within different systems, and the specific condition of artists here in Berlin. We learned that artists here have enjoyed a certain amount of security for the past decade—but that is rapidly changing due to gentrification and lack of decent jobs.

The Berlin Biennial was also a hot topic. For the first time we got a sense of some of the critique from local people. Earlier that day I had a conversation with a curator from NYC about the lack of engagement from visitors who are inherently in a very passive position, many just breezing through the Bienniale for a few hours. If that is the case, the question becomes how can we measure outcome of the BB7, that has said one of the goals of the biennial is “real engagement.” How can it surpass the condition of simulation? One possible measure of success could be how well BB7 integrates with the local arts and activist communities in Berlin, which has such a strong community of political art and activism already. At the Art Leaks meeting, local artists claimed that BB7 did just the opposite; they claimed the curators have aliened the local community. We learned of a group called Roza Perutz who has offered an in depth critique around BB7.

During the open discussion, a member from Occupy Museums announced that we were here as part of the Berlin Bienniale (I had been too shy to do this myself, and had claimed my affiliation as Arts & Labor.) That opened up an extremely interesting discussion about why we were here, and what information did we have to help inform our decision to participate in BB7?

Someone in the audience asked us if Occupy Museums decision to participate was either based on stupidity or lack of knowledge about the local context. This brought forth a dialog about how to exchange information around big shows like BB7, or in situations where local political knowledge could help inform the decision to participate.  At the end of the night, it was decided that there would be another meeting (the following night) to break out into smaller working groups to begin to tangibly hash these things out.

Next Night (June 4th): Working Group Meeting

I arrived at the working group meeting over an hour late (after getting lost biking around Berlin) When I got there, the meeting was not as had been announced the night before, instead Art Leaks was talking about a journal that they were working on. Members of the audience called for break out groups or a kind of structure to continue our discussions. At 9:30 we finally broke out into groups and began to speak more in-depth. The group that I was part of—the “allies” group, talked a bit about what an internet- based platform might look like for information exchange. While no major conclusions were made, we discussed the need for something more robust than a tool to expose institutions. What would a tool look like that would build international solidarity among cultural workers?

The final outcome of this meeting was another gathering at 8PM next Monday June 11 at Flutgraben.

It turns out that you can launch a protest after just arriving in a new country even if you still can’t tell one straße from another and haven’t figured out how to do your laundry yet. You need a network, some red paint, and people who are already ready to march.

Berlin had its first casseroles protest yesterday on June 6th, 2012. The casseroles protests have been spreading worldwide in solidarity with the general student strike in Quebec and the tuition hikes, anti-protest laws, and indifference from mainstream Canada they have been combating. Casseroles are based on el cacerolazo, a form of protest pioneered in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay under dictatorial regimes in the 1970s. It consists of everyday citizens banging pots and pans as they walk in the streets. People lean out of windows and bang pots. They stand on balconies and beat muffin trays. They wheel their bikes on the sidewalk and ring their bike bells. Every Wednesday, Casseroles Night in Canada, a loose web entity, as well as other Quebec-based groups have called for International casseroles in solidarity for the situation in Quebec.

Berlin Casseroles on its way from Deutsche Bank to the Quebec Embassy, stops two and three on the spontaneous march route.

So on June 6th, we marched. There were more than fifty of us, the required number of people to break the anti-protest law in Quebec. There were people from Canada (both from Quebec and from other provinces), the USA, Iran, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Mexico, Germany, and France. We had mic checks in English, French, and German. And, with some luck and many emails, the next Casseroles Night in Berlin will be next Wednesday, organized by student groups in Berlin rather than members of Occupy Wall Street.

The media (or the media that bothers to cover the casseroles) is increasingly saying that the Quebec protests are going global. I would add a friendly amendment: around the world, people are joining casseroles protests, not only in solidarity with Quebec students and their allies, but also to protest the same issues in their own country.

There isn’t a speck of Casseroles Berlin that is not International– in fact, the flavour of what happened yesterday in Berlin gives “International” a specific meaning that is different than the all-sorts-of-countries-joined-in version usually used in the media. First, a Canadian living in New York and visiting Berlin spearheaded the protest. I acknowledged the likelihood of banging a pot at an intersection by myself when I created the Facebook page. But because I am in Berlin to “participate” in an activist community “curated” by the Berlin Biennial (that’s another story), I had an opportunity to share my desire to do casseroles at an open action assembly full of activists from around the world. Soon a Spaniard and I were banging out the details.

Antonio asked me, “what does the red square symbolize?”
“It’s the sign of the Quebec strike.”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
“Um, it can be sort of a pun to mean ‘we’re squarely in the red.’”
“What about the belt and the scissors?”
“?”
“In Spain, the scissors symbolize cuts, and the belt is this [he mimes tightening his belt until he can't breathe].”

From that discussion, a new symbol was born:

A New Yorker with the Spanish-Quebecois sign during les casseroles in Berlin.

“The square is stronger than the scissors!” “Rock beats scissors, Squares beat cuts!” We banged our pots with scissors until they broke. “We broke the cuts!”

This morning I woke up and noticed that the Quebec-based Casseroles Night in Canada had adopted the scissors and square symbol.

Though there were many Canadians on the march, and even a troupe of Montrealers on vacation joined us and mic checked a sassy French protest poem, the main message of the protest was not just about solidarity with Quebec. Germans marched “dur solidaritat” not because they have student debt (they don’t) or high barriers to education (they don’t), but because they have more in common with 20 and 30 years olds in Quebec, Mexico, England, Poland, Chile, Iran, and Spain than they do with elite parties in power in their own countries. None of our governments are supporting us or our futures. We are all facing active repressions of freedom of expression, protest, and alternative ways to engage in politics. Capitalism and its trappings have eclipsed other forms of economy. In the words of Occupy Wall Street, the split between the 99% and the 1% is everywhere.

Tellingly, at the end of our march, which lead us to Kanada Haus (the Canadian Embassy), the Polizei came. “Does anyone speak fluent German?” “Non.” “No.” “Qua?” One undergraduate student from Humboldt University, a Canadian, spoke German. The power of language was immediately evident: she was identified as a sort of leader and was under the most threat for being fined or taken away (word of advice: next time, do not produce a fluent German speaker). It turns out there is a law in Germany that you cannot protest without telling the police 24 hours in advance. People who do not hold German passports are not allowed to protest at all. “Does anyone hold a German passport?” “Non.” “No.” “Qua?” Our Canadian German speaker told the police we were protesting in solidarity with students of Quebec. Where they aware of how the police treat those students? That they beat them? The answer in German: “We do that here, too.” We are more nervous now. After fifteen minutes or so, we convince the police that we didn’t know about the law, that the protest is spontaneous (this is the loop hole in the law), and that we are leaving now. Maybe they are not convinced. It is raining. They will have to levy fines in at least three languages. Tourists are starting to take photographs. One police officer tells another to drop it.They drop it.

From personal experience, the most likely place for a Canadian to be arrested in Berlin is outside of the Canadian Embassy.

A point I want to reiterate before I sign off is that this was not a cross-national protest. It was not just people in Berlin banging pots for people in Quebec. It was deeply international, or perhaps even post-national, in that it is impossible to separate the Quebecois from the Spanish, the Iranian from the New Yorker, the student from the tourist from the full-time activist. There are many, many differences between us. These differences inform our struggle. Yet they also infuse our politics with a certain je ne sais quoi, a type of electric partnership and productive collaboration that changes what we formerly considered (im)possible within our own countries. I hope the powers that be are nervous.

Solidarität, Berlin!

A full set of images is available here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/2008378@N22/pool/

Some notes on logistics:
- You need a network to get a casseroles (or any other form of protest or coordinated political action) going. This is not just because you need to get the word out, but because this network gives you currency. There were many questions of affiliation we had to clarify before people were comfortable joining or forwarding our call. “Occupy Wall Street,” “Canadian, American, Polish, Spanish, and Indian citizens” and other forms of affiliation that made us legible were more crucial than I could have anticipated.

- Your protest has to resonate with the people around you. These folks were ready to casserole.

- We went to a second hand store, found a red felt IKEA cushion, and cut it up for red squares to hand out. We made extra signs. We had fliers in English and German to give to people we met on the way. These visual and literary bits added to the energy of solidarity– we looked the same, had similar phrases in our heads and our mouths, and many felt welcomed because we had anticipated their arrival with gifts of red tags and signs.

- learn about the protest laws in new countries, and think of the best ways to use language differences to your advantage rather than your disadvantage– our main German speaker was both targeted by police and was in full control of our message to the police, yet she was not one of the point people with all the information.

- Oh my goodness, use human translators for your literature, not Google translate!

- One of the main friendly criticisms we’ve received is that we should have tapped into student organizations in Berlin. Yet they lie outside our network.This is a huge hurdle I am still working on.

- Max L.

1. strong arts community in Berlin who are sympathetic to occupy
2. Tent and sleeping bag, ideal for occupation
3. more than enough unethical activity to call out
4. intelligent and enthusiastic teammates from Occupy Museums
5. Solid critique of the BB7 exhibition
6. cameras that take full HD video
7. International audience
8. Website, blog, Facebook, and Twitter
9. English language proficiency
10. Masks, horns, bodies, and voices.

Today we had a meeting between the curators, art workers, and occupiers of the KW space that houses the biennial. All workers, occupiers, and curators expressed frustration at their working/living conditions and salaries. The question was raised: if we are feeling exploited, who do we think is gaining? The meeting was exceptional and we will schedule another to decide on some very provocative proposals.

-Tal

1. german keyboard
2. german language
3. line for the computer
4. personality conflicts among occupiers
5. fishbowl occupation – we are on display to fancy patrons
6. it is cold here and i didnt bring warm clothes
7. the curators live in cozy apartments in the KW while the occupiers live like squatters
8. minimal food selection in the kitchen
9. pressure to make and act
10. art history
11. missing my lady
12. need a key to the shower
13. forgiving the germans for WWII
14. self-criticism, self-consciousness, self-esteem, fear
15. someone is sleeping in my bed space

- Tal

Occupy Museums will be participating in the “autonomous section” of the 7th Berlin Biennial from June 1-14th.  This year’s theme, Forget Fear, addresses the global protest movements such as M15 and Occupy, and socially engaged art more generally.  Curators Joanna Warsaw, Artur Zmijewski, and the Russian art collective Voina seek to distort the boundaries of artist/non-artist, hosting protesters and supporting their work to make change. This temporary activist community currently holds a general assembly and stages actions and teach-ins.

Occupy Museums was invited to be part of this experiment after Joanna Warsaw made a trip to New York at the height of the Occupation of Zucotti Park in the Fall. She attended some of Occupy Museums’ actions, and asked us “what must institutions that would like to join [in your protests] be prepared to face?”  We learned about the concept for the Biennial, hosted a discussion with the New York Occupy community, and reached consensus within OM  that as many of the members as possible would go to Berlin (twelve in all, with one member staying in NYC to anchor our actions in the OWS/NYC community). We see this as an opportunity to cross-pollinate with activists from all over the world and develop our critique of the financialization of art and abuse of the commons.  On one hand, this Biennial marks the fact that the time to listen to these concerns has arrived. At the same time, we realize that co-option of movements by institutions such as the Berlin Biennial, which is funded mainly by the German government with support from BMW and other corporations, is a potential threat to our grassroots position. This is a reality we struggle with and will continue to grapple with during our time in Berlin. We are autonomous from the Biennial and its curators and will continue to question what these relationships mean and how they can be used to engender effective protest. Ultimately, we see our participation in this activist community hub as an opportunity to learn and trade tactics and new ways of thinking that will strengthen the global movement.

We will stage a series of street actions in Berlin with the international activist groups, targeting institutions that stand for abuse of the cultural commons.  Additionally, we will participate in a series of open conversations with collectors, museums staff, and visitors within the Biennial about economic justice in the arts and in their workplace.  The specifics about these actions will be determined after we arrive and meet other Occupiers, so please look for updates on Facebook and on this blog. Finally, some of our actions and discussions will be live-streamed through venues in New York and the web.

Occupy Museums is one small strand of a movement sparked by the failure not only of the American Dream but of the dream for equality and economic justice around the globe. We find ourselves in a unique position to engage with  new publics and international activists to develop the movement. We head to Berlin in the spirit of experimentation, to learn what we can to strengthen this movement, and to make real change.

Individual members of Occupy Museums and others participating in BB7 will be posting  here during our work in Berlin.