As far-right and authoritarian projects gain ground, institutions remain complicit in or silent on genocidal warfare and expanding militarisation. Cultural work has become a decisive terrain where fear, nostalgia, identity, and hegemony are produced, contested, and normalised. To counteract this, culture workers are challenged to build new solidarity structures beyond their own fields.
Organised by the Art Worker Solidarity group in Berlin, this two-day symposium brings together culture workers, artists, organisers, unions, and precarised workers’ groups from across Europe and beyond. Through participatory working sessions, in-depth discussions, and collective analysis, we will exchange organising tactics, map the political, legal, economic, and psychological conditions shaping our work, and examine how precarity is weaponised to discipline dissent. Together, we will investigate ways to counter complicity – particularly in relation to supply chains and funding structures – while building solidarity between different places and types of precarised work.
The current moment calls for a renewed political imagination. This symposium proposes to lay the groundwork for an enduring international coalition to sustain long-term anti-authoritarian struggle. Open to all grassroots groups and individuals seeking to build and connect local and international organising efforts. Join us!
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The Art Worker Solidarity group was formed in response to known cases of censorship and silencing of visual artists in Berlin due to their positions in solidarity with Palestine, as well as the ongoing, intentional precarisation of artists through defunding and attempted deportation, all of which are exacerbated by the rise and normalisation of right-wing extremism. Rather than seeing these as isolated phenomena, Art Worker Solidarity seeks to collectively push back against repression by establishing and strengthening intersectional networks of solidarity.
2-Day Program
Saturday, April 11
Mapping the Terrain: Authoritarianism and Cultural Work
11:00–11:30 — OPENING
Coffee & welcome
Brief framing of the two-day gathering and its aims
11:30–13:00 — INTRODUCTIONS
Invited groups introduce themselves
13:00–14:00 — LUNCH
14:00–15:30 — PARALLEL WORK SESSIONS
A — On material labour conditions, precarity, repression
B — Building and sustaining organising structures
C — Fighting complicity: transectoral action
15:30–16:00 — COFFEE BREAK
16:00–17:30 — PLENARY REPORT-BACK
Summaries from the work sessions, discussion, preparation for day 2
17:30–20:30 — EVENING DRINKS
Sounds from Radio Against Repression
Sunday, April 12
From Shared Analysis to Collective Action
12:00–13:00 — REFLECTIONS OVER BRUNCH
Summary of day 1, updates, intentions for the day
13:00–13:30 — COALITION PROPOSAL
How can we support each other in the future?
Proposing an anti-authoritarian, international coalition
13:30–15:00 — PARALLEL WORK SESSIONS
A — Building a coalition: What are our shared struggles and how do we connect them?
B — Organisational forms: How might a coalition be structured?
15:00–15:30 — COFFEE BREAK
15:30–16:00 — PLENARY REPORT-BACK
Summaries from the work sessions
Decision-making on how to stay in touch
16:00–17:00 — CALL TO ACTION!
Call to action, action points, commitments
17:00–17:30
Closing thoughts, feedback round.
