Updates
ACT NOW! Submit your story to ArtLeaks and end the silence on exploitation and censorship! Please see the submission guidelines in the "Artleak Your Case" page
Submitted and current instances of abuse are in the "Cases" section
To find out more about us and how to contribute to our struggles, please go to the "About ArtLeaks" page
Please consult "Further Reading" for some critical texts that relate to our struggles
For more platforms dedicated to cultural workers' rights please see "Related Causes"
For past and upcoming ArtLeaks presentations and initiatives please go to "Public Actions"
Macao belongs to everyone, let’s protect it!
via Occupied Galfa Tower, Milan, Macao Art Centre
On Saturday May 5th, 2012 many citizens and workers in the fields of arts, entertainment and culture entered and occupied the Galfa Tower, in order to create Macao, a new arts center in Milan. The tower is owned by Fondiaria Sai, whose honorary reference is Salvatore Ligresti. The tower is located in a historic office skyscraper in the center of Milan, which has been left abandoned for more than fifteen years.
In an extraordinary way, the creation of a new space for arts involved thousands of people, that for the past week have been working hard to make this space livable and visible. A lot of us every day come to Macao and experience the sharing of purposes and vision, engendering a fresh new perspective about the creation of an arts and culture center in the city.
We have been receiving numerous requests, by academies, universities and intellectuals that want to participate in the Macao project, by sharing their knowledge, providing their own means of production, conducting classes and workshops in a space that, increasingly, is emerging as a never before imagined space of beauty and cultural enrichment.
We believe that this process of participation, filled with wonder and enthusiasm can really represent the birth of a new perspective and a way to rethink culture, especially during these times when, too often, culture itself is considered as something relegated to secondary importance, because of a generalized crisis that keeps preventing us from imagining a future that is truly filled with opportunities. We instead, believe that Macao continues to show, with strength, tenacity and vision, another concept of thinking about power relations and another way of understanding the current times. All this is contagious.
That said, the threat of imminent eviction is very great and we should not leave this wonderful process in the hands of the logic of police repression.
WE ASK TO ALL OF YOU, ALL CITIZENS, ARTISTS AND THINKERS, TO SHARE AND SPREAD THIS APPEAL TO PROTECT MACAO.
Please send an email to proteggiamomacao@gmail.com to sign the call of support!
Occupied Galfa Tower, Milan
____________________________________________________
May 5th, 2012, Milan- We are very happy to announce the opening of MACAO, the new arts centre in Milan, a great experiment in building using a bottom-up approach, a space for the production of art and culture. A place where artists and citizens can gather together in order to invent a new system of rules for a common and participatory management which, in an autonomous way, will redefine their time and the priorities of their work, allowing them to experiment new common languages.
We are artists, curators, critics, guard room, graphic designers, performers, actors, dancers, musicians, writers, journalists, art teachers, students, and everybody who works in the field of art and culture. We’ve been mobilizing for one year, meeting in assemblies to discuss our situation as precarious workers in the fields of artistic production, entertainment, media, entertainment industry, festivals and the so-called economy of the event – in the context of a world increasingly enslaved by Finance that exploits and absorbs the primary task of culture, namely to be an economy of sharing.
We represent a large share of the workforce of this city that has always been an outpost of the advanced service sector. We are the multitude of workers from the creative industries that too often have to submit to humiliating conditions to get a living income, with no protection and no coverage in terms of welfare and not even being considered as proper interlocutors for the current labor reform. We were born precarious; we are the pulse of the future economy, and we will not continue to accommodate exploitation mechanisms and the redistribution of loss.
We opened MACAO in order to let culture strongly regain a piece of Milan, in response to an all too familiar scenario, in which the city is ravaged by public procurement professionals, unscrupulous building permits, according to a neo-liberal logic that has always humiliated the inhabitants and pursued a single goal: the profit of few and the exclusion the many.
Since last spring, many citizens, artists and cultural workers have given life to new experiences through practices of occupation of public and private abandoned spaces. Such experiences are proving to lasting in time, by taking care of culture, territories, work, new forms of economy and new forms of collective intelligence. Artistic production must therefore be entirely re-thought, we must take this time and this right in a serious and radical way, by directly being responsible for what is ours. Macao is precisely this, a space for everyone, that must become an active laboratory where art, entertainment, culture, education and information workers are invited. Here artists, intellectuals, lawyers, activists, writers, film makers, philosophers, economists, architects and urban planners, neighbourhood and city inhabitants should take the time to build a social, common and cooperative dimension.
We have a lot of work to do, we must transform these words into real practices, more and more constituent and effective, in order to build alternative models to those in which we live. Everything depends on us. We should not take anything for granted, producing competent inquiries, debates, analysis and confrontations concerning all the territories that produce inequality and expropriation of value, not to mention new forms of capitalist ideology – which is disgusting. We need to have joy and humour to transform this commitment into a human, collective and liberating moment. We should take care of this space so that it can host everyone. It is fundamental that in this space art and communication cease to be ends in themselves. On the opposite, they must explode and find their motivations in this fight, building new imaginaries and bringing into light the world that we see. Viva Macao and keep up the good work!
We fought alongside and within these networks: Lavoratori dell’arte, Cinema Palazzo in Rome, Teatro Valle Occupato in Rome, Sale Docks in Venice, Teatro Coppola in Catania, L’Asilo della Creatività e della Conoscenza in Naples, and Teatro Garibaldi Aperto in Palermo.
For more information, please go to:
http://www.lavoratoridellarte.org/
Freedom Fast Hunger Strike And Sit in at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, India.
via newzfirst
NEW DELHI – Two anti- web censorship activists ended their 7-day fast Wednesday [May 9th, 2012] at a New Delhi hospital on the advice of doctors over deteriorating health.
Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, whose case was featured on ArtLeaks earlier this year, and activist-journalist Alok Dixit of the ‘Save Your Voice’ campaign were fasting at Jantar Mantar since May 2 to press for the annulment of IT Rules 2011. […]
The controversial IT Rules 2011 makes intermediary websites liable for any content published on them. Domain would be legally bound to ban a website or blog within 36 hours of receiving complaints from any user or authority.
“No notice will be served, no hearing will take place and no judicial orders need to be issued to do so,” Dixit said. “The onus to prove innocence would lie on the owners of the websites in a court. This is ridiculous.”
News websites would thus be held responsible for readers’ comments, he added.
He said the government was banning websites and deleting Facebook accounts without any notice or warning “Internet gave us the liberty to raise our voices against various issues. But it is no more a free voice.”
While international domain providers like Google and Yahoo are fighting against the Rules, Indian domain providers have started implementing it fearing the legal consequences, Dixit said. Mumbai Police banned cartoonist Trivedi’s website cartoonagainstcorruption.com some months ago on the basis of complaints by a Congress party leader.
“We have just ended the hunger protest, but not the struggle,” Dixit said. “We will fight this injustice against freedom of speech.”
________________________________________
via Save Your Voice
Imagine a situation when our Facebook posts are being censored or each of our Skype conversations is being overheard. Suppose that our tweets or blogs, the private photographs and documents that we store and other such online activities are being by monitored by someone else other than us. Does it seem very implausible for something like this to happen? Well, it surely will happen if the IT Act 2011 is not annulled!
4. Limit the growth of various IT related industries and services (in certain cyber cafes, search engines and bloggers)
Please sign this petition to “SAVE YOUR VOICE”. Government wants to use the threat of ” national security” or “public morality” to undermine our digital rights. Tell your lawmakers that we won’t stand for censorship, monitoring or dangerous, unsupervised information sharing in this law or any law like it.
via Cartoonist Rights Network International
May 9, 2012, Burke, Virginia – Today Dr. Robert Russell, the Executive Director of the Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI), announced the winners of the 2012 Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award as decided by a unanimous vote of the CRNI Board of Directors. The winners are Ali Ferzat, from Syria, and Aseem Trivedi, from India. CRNI, the only international organization exclusively devoted to defending the human rights of cartoonists imperiled because of their work, will hold the award ceremony during the annual convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) on September 15. The ceremony is currently scheduled to take place at George Washington University’s Jack Morton Auditorium in Washington, DC. […]
Aseem Trivedi, a young cartoonist from India, like Ali Ferzat, made two courageous decisions. First, in an atmosphere of increasing censorship and repression in the world’s largest democracy, Aseem launched the Cartoons Against Corruption website. In an effort to mobilize his fellow citizens against India’s pervasive political corruption, Aseem filled this site with his anti-corruption cartoons. After being charged with treason and insulting national symbols, Aseem made his second courageous act. Despite the charges and threats of additional charges, he has taken a leadership role in India’s emerging free speech movement. Joining forces with other free speech activists, Aseem has launched an online freedom of expression campaign called Save Your Voice: A Movement Against Web Censorship.
Pussy Riot Members Ordered Held While Their Supporters Arrested Outside Court Hearing
via The Moscow Times
This Thursday, April 19th, a Moscow court ruled in favor of investigators requesting that the detention of members of the punk group Pussy Riot to be extended to June 24. Investigators argued that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and two other jailed group members “could become the targets of criminal acts” if they were released, Interfax reported.
A court had previously ordered the women held until April 24. Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samusevich have been in custody since March. They are accused of participating in a Feb. 21 performance by Pussy Riot in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
They face up to seven years in prison if convicted on charges of hooliganism.
At Thursday’s hearing, investigators said they need more time to search for witnesses and other participants in the concert. They said Tolokonnikova had committed an illegal act “in a cynical way in a holy place, setting herself against society,” Rapsi reported from the courtroom.
Tolokonnikova told the court that she has suffered head pain while in jail and has not been given access to medical care at the detention facility. She asked the court to release her so that she can obtain a diagnosis before the possibility of being subjected to prison time. Tolokonnikova also argued that her 4-year-old daughter is suffering psychologically because of their separation.
Her lawyer, Mark Feigin, presented statements from federal human rights watchdog the Public Oversight Commission and from members of the Moscow police’s public chamber requesting that Tolokonnikova be freed, Rapsi reported.
_______________________________
via Reuters
Russian police detained at least 13 people who demonstrated outside a courthouse this Thursday, April 19th, against the arrest of three members of a women’s punk rock group that performed a protest song in Moscow’s main cathedral, witnesses said.
The court was to decide whether to extend the detention of the three women over the performance, in which the group known as Pussy Riot sang a song against President-elect Vladimir Putin in short dresses and colored masks in Christ the Savior Cathedral.
About 60 of the group’s supporters chanted “Freedom! Freedom!” outside the beige brick Moscow courthouse and some released green, pink and yellow balloons with Pussy Riot’s trademark masks drawn on them.
Scuffles broke out when a Russian Orthodox bystander threw an egg at the husband of one of the three detainees. A Reuters reporter saw police drag at least 13 people off into police vans, two of them for throwing a smoke bomb.
The three women could face seven years in jail on hooliganism charges but deny taking part in the protest in February. No date has been set for trial and the court was expected to extend their pre-trial detention.
Anger over their arrest has fuelled criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose status has improved vastly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and which has played an increasingly active role in politics since then.
Russians are divided over Pussy Riot’s “punk prayer” protest. Many believers were offended by the protest but some are also upset that Church leaders have called for tough sentences in the case.
Patriarch Kirill, who has described the performance as part of an attack on the Russian Orthodox Church, is also under fire over a lifestyle which critics say is lavish and unbecoming of the head of the Church.
______________________________
via Echo Moskvy
Photo-reportage of the detention of members of the group “Arkady Kots” and others who were performing in a street festival in support of the three women outside Tagansky Court in Moscow.
______________________________
via chtodelat news
The group Arkady Kots performing in support of the three arrested alleged members of Pussy Riot and getting detained by Moscow police
Slon.Ru’s reporter on the scene relates this interesting exchange with one of the arresting police officers:
When I asked the officer supervising the arrests on what grounds the musicians [Nikolay Oleynikov and Kirill Medvedev, two members of the revolutionary folk ensemble Arkady Kots] were being detained, he explained that any organized actions are interpreted as [unsanctioned protests], and that outside a court house they are prohibited by law.
“So you’d detain [people for reciting] poems?”
“For [reciting] poems as well — for any unsanctioned actions.”
“Is it permitted to converse in prose?”
“Prose is allowed.”
“What about unrhymed blank verse?”
The officer thought hard but gave no reply. But some activists standing nearby suggested that, given the political situation, blank verse was doubly forbidden.
_____
P.S. Arkady Kots continued their performance as they were being transported to a police station along with other lovers of blank verse:
Save Teatro Valle!
via Foundation Campaign Teatro Valle Bene Comune/ Valle Foundation of the Commons
“The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible”
We are workers within the fields of art and knowledge. On June 14, 2011, we occupied the Teatro Valle, the oldest theater in Rome, to save it from privatization and to denounce the state of emergency of Italian culture and politics.
During these past seven months of the occupation of the Teatro Valle, we have been experimenting, pushing the limits of legality, to create an environment of participation and cultural production, which goes beyond the administrative governance and the logic of profit. On January 13, we entered a second delicate and passionate phase: the construction of a juridical, artistic, and economic device based on cooperation, on a participatory management and self governance, which would transform the struggle into a bottom-up and continuous act of creation. Through a widespread public shareholding campaign, we are collecting the necessary funds to realize a Foundation of the Commons.
This is a unique experiment, the outcome of which is not obvious, and we will need everyone to get involved: from the artists and intellectual workers, to the individual citizens from the networks that in these recent months have supported the practices of the Commons.
The Teatro Valle is a theater with a long European historical significance and relevance: through the future Foundation we would like to preserve the theater’s international nature, which we want now to be informed by all the groups, bodies and experiences of dissent that met on February 10, 2012, to continue this fight in pursuing our common path. If we win this battle, the Valle Foundation of the Commons will be the first European institution operating on a principle of self-governance. It could then serve as a model in different sectors, as an imprudent and risky experiment of creating a political laboratory for all.
We invite you to join us and get involved in this passionate struggle!
We would be happy to welcome you as a member. To support us please make a donation of min. 10€ to:
COMITATO VALLE BENE COMUNE
C/O BANCA ETICA
IBAN: IT 28 F 05018 03200 000000558877
BIC/SWIFT: CCRTIT2T84A
And then send an e-mail to vallebenecomune@gmail.com with your name, date of birth, e-mail, phone number and the donation amount.
For more information please visit http://www.teatrovalleoccupato.it
For months, actors, directors and backstage technicians have turned Rome’s oldest theatre into a squat – and all because they want the show to go on
GLOBAL ACTION “OCCUPY UKRAINIAN BODY – FIGHT CENSORSHIP!”
On March 24, 2012 the global action “Occupy Ukrainian Body – Fight Censorship!” began in Rome. The activists from ESC / European Studies Cooperation (Italy), #Occupy Geneva (Switzerland) and “Political Critique” (Poland) made a protest against censorship in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Italy to support the Visual Culture Research Center of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and its exhibition “Ukrainian Body”, that were both closed by the university administration. The protestants called for the restoration of artistic and political freedom at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and demanded to reclaim the unjust situation – to resume the Center’s activity in full scope in its working space of the Old Academic Building and to reopen the “Ukrainian Body” exhibition.
The international action “Occupy Ukrainian Body – Fight Censorship!” of the Occupy movement will continue in other countries to express global solidarity with contemporary socially engaged art and Visual Culture Research Center as the institution representing it. The banner with the slogan of the action goes to other occupy cities circulating around the globe for more actions of support for the VCRC that will take place over the next weeks.
Please find the video and photos of the action in Rome below.
ArtLeaks 