Under These Words (Solidarity Athens 2016)
(2017, 52’) by Robin Vanbesien

Three actors go on a journey through Athens. They seek to listen to fellow-citizens engaged in different organisations of the grassroots solidarity movement. In the course of many conversations, the social imaginary of the citizens unfolds as a living continuity. According to the artist:
“I went to Athens with the idea of staging the story of Oresteia with theatre actors and citizens involved in the solidarity movement. However, the idea of superposing an allegorical fiction of the ancient Greek tragedy upon the social present of Athens 2016 crumbled. What I originally hoped to learn from staging Oresteia – the idea of socially lived (in)justice – returned from the solidarity movement as a ‘structure of feeling’ (Raymond Williams)”.

Solidarity Poiesis: I Will Come and Steal You
(B_Books, 2017)

Taking its vantage point from the popular assemblies in Athens, the book discusses the multifaceted ideas and prospects of this grassroots movement, such as prefigu- ration, self-governance and abolition democracy. The notion of ‘solidarity poiesis’ arises from an argument for a poetics that will transform social justice through new sustainable self-organized infrastructures. Edited by Robin Vanbesien, the book is a follow-up to Under These Words (Solidarity Athens 2016) and collects a group of essays and interviews by and with Tom Engels, Bryana Fritz, Christos Giovanopoulos, Avery F. Gordon, Valeria Graziano, Christina Papadopoulos, Christos Sideris, Alberto Toscano and Robin Vanbesien.

Bojana Cvejić is a performance theorist and performance maker. Cveji ́c teaches on various dance and performance programmes in Europe. Her current research focuses on social choreography, technologies and performances of the self, as well as time and rhythm in performance poetics and Post-Fordist modes of production.

Robin Vanbesien has participated in solo and group exhibitions including: “OMONIA”, 5th Athens Biennial (2016); “Foreign Places”, WIELS (Brussels, 2016); “Gravidade”, Lumiar Cité (Lisbon, 2015); and “F. Hodler” (with Willem Oorebeek), Pinacoteca (Vienna, 2014). His artistic residencies have included Maumaus International Residency Programme (Lisbon), Capacete (Rio de Janeiro), Rupert (Vilnius) and WIELS Residency (Brussels).