¶    Day 0 (Wednesday 18th)

See http://roffasqek.wordpress.com/may18/ :
    * hangout
    * dinner
    * arrest !
    * concert

¶    Day 1 (Thursday 19th)

See http://roffasqek.wordpress.com/may19/ :
    * bike tour day !
    * film night at Worm

¶    SESSION 1 [Juliana: Rio de Janeiro architecture ~ 10:30]

Juliana is an architect from Rio de Janeiro, living and studying currently in Berlin

Brazil is very difficult politically atmosphere.
Recent "parliamentary coup" to impeach the President.
A more conservative-rightwing government now.
For left/poor... future reality now looks worse, a difficult struggle.

Favela + squatting experience in "Indiana" in Rio.

Evictions + capitalist development of the city

the favela:
50 years
400 houses / 100 dwellers
in a "good hood" kind of forgotten by municipality

Current mega-events (Olympics 2016 + World Cup 2014) resulted in process of social cleansing + removing some favelas.

Since 2010, a cleanup.
Municipality comes with a programme "My house, my life" and offers relocation to the periphery.
Favela was seen as "a risk area."
First offer was "social housing."
Part of the dwellers accepted, part did not.

A group organised, started legal battle.

-> Result: municipality canNOT demolish the houses that are inhabited.
This turns to a struggle inside the favela (people that want to stay VS people that want to go).
They engaged:
    * other institutions
    * university students doing an experiment to "think about means of participatory process within the community"
    * ... to assist resistance to eviction
    * do "dynamics" with dwellers, with the children

Dwellers want / need concrete changes, so they get in conflict with university research, language, etc.
In the end uni drawings showed that people can stay - dispell the fake reality of impossibility to stay. This was demonstrated by plans, maps, 3D representations, etc.
In Brazil the poor people also reproduce the logic of hierarchy - "oh, the university came!"
This needed to be dispelled.
She shows:
    * it's difficult to communicate and self-organise
    * "the limits of our tools" !!!
    * we need to reconsider our tools, and how we as society can work together
This is serious when you acknowledge the reality of these people being there for 50 years, which adds to "how the city should be."



----------------------- QUESTIONS

Q: about tools (good/bad practices) and how the conflict in collaboration came about:
    * uni people were academic architects, professors. saw themsleves as "experts who can change lives by drawing"
    * a reality of a favela = an urban space you do not understand
    * first = mapping of the favela. official plans were not mapped, so useless
    * uni people needed to relearn their practice
    * [...]
tools:
    * 2D drawings of favella do NOT work ("they don't see themselves in this drawing")
    * they had a 3D model and internal projects! out of scale, etc
    * ... but then unis learned to read their maps <---  "cognitive map" + real representative demands
    * "the way you ask, you imply an imposition" <--- epistemology !
    * working with children (have them to use the model) worked well
    * [...]


Q: mentality/cultural aspects in european vs brazil squatting, from a political standpoint
"when i first came to berlin, i felt that there is zero conncetion between the two realities"
comparisons are less useful than trying to "see your own experience through trying to grasp the other reality"
people in favelas:
    * mostly do not have time for political participation and political self-reflection
    * are not educated, sometimes illiterate, etc
in eu:
    * squatting is a reflection of politics
there:
    * politics are MADE a resistance against capitalism, even though it is not "aware or organised" sometimes
the struggle is not the same, but we can cross-contribute


Q: gentrification in favela? "saw blueprints 15 years ago to demolish favelas and rebuild almost the same spatial layout/scale, but different materials. what became of this"?
the plan ~ "favela bairro" to "urbanize the favelas"
first:
    there was a sense of victory (development of infrastructure - electricity, sanitary, etc)
but then:
    the process result was a gentrification of the poorest
    today 80% of the dwellers in favelas are renting their place!
    rents are also rising (example of 6x increase in 1 month!, to 6/7 of a poor's persons wage -> impossible)
    temptation to sell + move to another favela is high
    there is not a possibility to sell + not move out though (there is no "middle ground")
"so how to prevent expelling these people?"


Q: this is similar in london. how is municipality support (?)
there are lots of protections in brazilian laws - but they are not put in practice!
"state against the state" situation is common.
so "the only way [to gain representation in municipality] is to struggle - the law is there."


Q: how do we see the architects (as "gods of state") of the Olympics 2016 masterplan - was it possible for people to interact with it?
architects do things "in an official way"
70.000 people have been evicted, "highest in history, and Rio always had evictions"
even though "architects do not want to do it, their hands sign these interventions"
"they mean don't think on the consequences of the twenty houses that were taken down to, for example, expand the road"
suggestion (again): work with locals, "their minds are not tight. the answers come from dwellers. we need to know how to learn from them."


Q: is there a culture of "open political challenge" against architects themselves?
"I made many things i disagree with, [but i also have a personal struggle]"
-- "the problem for architects is already to define the work they're given"
"when we do the best, we do with what we have"
"you have to be a bit hypocrite to play this... i was a hypocrite... we are all"

[[[ discussion about recording ... still has no objection ]]]


Q: mega events + zaha hadid quote (not responsible for bahrain 1000+ deaths) ... should we think this critically?
"yes - this is at the center of neoliberal development"
suggestion - develop small strategies:
    "take it to the architects"
    develop participatory strategies !!!


Q: startup "silicon valley" replication culture
this is not our culture ...
this towers are getting built ... i hope they get squatted asap
[ turning neoliberal development against itself in the long term? ]


Q: clarify, how do evictions happen?
before in the 1970s "police just burned down places, people died"
now they can't do that anymore "because we have the constitution, and the internet"
but now:
    * they try to lure with "the official strategies":
        * media pressure + spin ("favelas are dirty")
        * with deceptions of alternatives, which are psychologic violence
        * narrative of "protecting the inhabitants against the favela [violence and drugs]", which is sometimes not a reality anymore though
        * the police is pressuring down on the favelas, "lots of killings etc" <-- "shock doctrine"
        * the UPP department of riot police, for police to go in the favela and "make it peaceful"
    * but by the end, they do physically violent evictions, though "as a last resource"
gentrification + "securing the investments"
"we have a much more violent city today than we had 10 years ago"


Q: what would be an european analogue perspective, like a ghetto ... the roma? etc?
"it's totally different, smaller, etc"
"it's always a clash"
example in Hungary, both in the villages, and in the capital
----------
"i was living in the Calais jungle"
about 4000 people, before 50% eviction
word "Ghetto" was used since the beginning
"this is a fully functioning city with shops, night clubs, etc"
"illegal + tolerated setup, behind barbed wire"
... teargas being launched from the motorways
huge ghetto, huge illegal population
majority have no papers, are trying to get to UK, from Syria, Sudan, Pakistan
"the jungle is a place where you can exist kind of tolerated for now, illegaly, in Europe, you can exist here tax free"


Q: does reclamation of those post-mega event spaces happen (like for the world cup)?
lots of big structures are now empty. no idea what will happen with them.
some will be sold to private sector to build new houses.
"they are evicting one of the oldest favelas to build a golf club"
"when people are moved far away, all the places are the same, and there is no public space, no inside-outside relation"
"the dwellers did start to make changes already" -> FAVELIZATION OF THE SOCIAL HOUSING
why:
    * it was "forbidden" at first to even have commerce in these spaces, but that was impossible
    * [...]


Q: genealogy of favella, "how did they come around, who used to own that land"? where would one do it in europe? what could we learn from the favellas, or the Calais jungle? could there be positive takeaways? ties to building laws, etc.
"some amazing examples of autonomous organisation" ... [will be discussed in next session]
--examples exist in European of Favelas appropriated by neoliberal/libertarian?:
    * how "people just need to be left alone by the state, only given some enterpreneur spirit"
    * "the result is as bad, or worse, than masterplanning ... we should not idealize the favela"
    * example - Privatization of public housing in the UK, with 1980s, Thatcher, etc
    * the reading of favela as "get the state out of housing and let the market work" is dangerous
--"people growing up in capitalism will reproduce it"
--"these useless and imposed projects are how neoliberalism works":
    * example of ZAD out of Nantes - struggle against an airport "that is useless and imposed"
    * a beginning of a "new wave of squatting in France", 5000ha of Land - a huge forest
    * "the whole places is boobie-trapped", "police was not ready to walk in swamps"
    * bring in new techniques that combine tradition with new ecological perspectives
    * [...]
--genealogy of favela?
    * beginnings are "difficult to understand and complicated" (???)
    * traditional view of favela as a "natural process and found empty lands" is romanticised
    * ... [new research points] in reality, favelas were created by urban policy
    * ... "first favela in Rio was soldiers given a woody part to have an informal government approved settlement" ~late 19th century
    * "this happened with the knowledge of the state for decades, but did not have real estate interest [because of floods, etc], even though sometimes they are good location", but now with new construction technology and lack of available place...
    * one geneaology: somebody buys an area, subdivides it with "gray legality"
        * example of a place that asked for the paper of owning
        * [...]
    * brazil legislation: "right to stay if you are there for some time (5 years, but can be shorter) " ~ Usucapião (adverse possession) Law
    * brough about by migrations of workers, etc
    * but "today they're completely different"
    * what is happening in Europe now, how the space was built and how people relate to the space now, "will bring conflicts in the future"
    * [...]

[[[ session ends 1200 for lunch break ]]]

¶    SESSION 2 [Jan, Jeannette from Enschede/NL, ~13:00]

inhabitants: 200k - 35k students
university students and art schools influenced the squatting scene

"in germany it wasn't possible to squat any more so much"
moved there to join collectives

----> Slides [TODO: ask Jeanette Petrik]

map of situation 10 years ago:
    5 active squat groups (artists, activists, etc)
    ~10 people by group
... now all changed:
    2 groups left (one old groups merged, one new)

organize a few festivals, etc

legal status:
    gray / undefined
    "city doesn't bother us" because of 'agreement of use' (gebruiksovereenkomst)"

recently ties to both city council + neighbourhood (community) have increased
    getting public + arts funding!

STUDIO COMPLEX (founded 2010) is not very political:
    "sees itself as artists"
    "just want to have a space to do what they want"
    sometimes being political is seen as "danger seeking from hooligans", etc
    seen from outside: "oh nice, you're making the property more va as artists!"

--> internal contradiction. started DIVERSITEIT (founded 2015).

took a new space:
    * 10 people involved   
    * 3 people live there
    * ateliers
    * legal status very different - illegality
    * tried to get deal with the owners - did not work out
    * "recently had court case where decision was made if the owners sell, we have to get out in 2 weeks". expect to be evicted soon.
    * [...]

internal dynamics:
    * try to be respectful inernally
    * non-hierarchy
    * "quite self reflective in general"
    * [...]
this makes the new group "work much better".
many are artists 
"at least, politics is not discouraged"
they are not "crazily active" though

old squatted buildings / projects got legalised, via city offers etc.
so "banning" squatting was a slow death.

squatting laws in netherlands before 2010:
    table + chair + bed + change lock + call police
    give building back in the state you found it (if owners decide to sell or remodel)
... now:
    illegalised!
    same as in Germany and many other countries
     right to housing > right to ownership = allows for new squatting projects

general stituation before:
    students had a lot of space, it was legal
    empty spaces are used more for commercial practices than "alternative living"
... now:
    still a lot of empty buildings
    anti-squat companies give really precarious contracts, used predominantly by students and former squatters


Q for others: how do projects deal with nonconsensual participation [in the system] and gentrification/cooptation?
-- city often uses [cool venues] to boost gentrification
try to go beyond your space, "network with others that are a part of the struggle"
politicize WHY you're living this way!
-- yes. show that it is possible - demonstrate alternatives.
but for some reason they do not use word of "squatting".
-- yes. fear of using that word for the taboo connotation.
squatting is political.
-- yes. example of Prague.
the art space is "celebrated", the political is "persecuted".
this is political pressure on its alternatives. undemocratic...
-- yes. and who persecutes:
    * authorities, of course
    * but also from the inside! ("you are putting the squat at risk")
[...]


q: negotiation should happen less, work more on security

* "squatting used to be a comfort thing!" (before illegalisation)
* "the art squat is more realistic with the art world"
* but people are difficult, "finding solutions with people who are totally not likeminded"


q: "the whole thing became hippie shit ... apolitical!" (???)
movement did not evolved, the world changed.
[...]
"it became l'art pur l'art (art for the sake of art) !"
modern squatting texts were in the style of the 40s, 50s!
not just "being active", but "having a political world" [in correlation to the current outside!]
"and a lot of drugs!"


Q: have you seen groups that are doing good?
--no.
--------------
(cont)
-- maybe "the more we reflect, we are not coming out"
why?
the system will reproduce the structures [... ???]
mentioned Marcuse "repressive tolerance" in the society
(cont)
call for "real politics": analysis, etc
-- "world is changing, but it's still the same old shit"


Q: do you want to be so selective as a group? how to incorporate, deliberately, "the outside"? to what extent should we open a squat?
[...]
anti "structurelessness"
"a squat is rebuilding itself every day".
how to deal with "community feeling", managing long term court processes, etc?
-------------
(cont)
specific case told:
    * "we had bad experiences with people who became homeless, were not political and asked to live in the squat (a social centre)"
    * living there was prohibited [...] but we created a "secret committee" because some of us were alredy living there
    * "after 1.5 years they were still there, so it was difficult [to move them out], it was too comfortable"
    * there was a huge internal conflict
    * "we decided we need to evict t"
    * [...]
advice:
    * define what the place is (residential? artistic? etc)
    * take the right to evict people if they hurt the collective
    * "keep the strength and empowerment of the squat itself"
"people may be conservative, even when they appear to do radical things [...] for their own benefit"

--"return of the need to consider squatting on a basic level = accommodation".
squatting is welcome because "it generates culture".
"refugee situation will require housing".
established groups will feel pressure from competing actors.

-- (from yesterday's former squat art gallery, Wolfart, we visited in the bike tour)
(regarding affinity to a project)
 the person showing us around said: 
 "these houses are shit, i wouldn't buy them"
"when they raise the rent, i'm moving away"; i.e., he offered no solution to the problem of gentrification
for his meaning, if the art project is strong enough, it will hold. but it seems to forget that it is important to hold onto physical spaces also for art but also for living


Q: Do non-political people dilute political projects?

(a few words on Klinika, Prague squat)
--[on the other hand] Klinika is subject to a "witch hunt" and is probably now facing eviction because of supporting refugees, etc


Q: You started as friends. How did this develop as the space became public?
first people were accepted.
then people "just wanted to use the space": this triggered internal discussions.
sometimes people were denied "because people already in the group had conflicts with the newcomers."
or even "just felt they couldn't get along with them without articulating" !!!
"don't really have a final answer to this."


Q: networks (for skill sharing, etc).
(example: art work in a political context.)
mentioned: "DeAppel" Amsterdam
but then:
    "fluidity vanished, performance became rutinised, etc"
social practice aspect requires a network, coming out of autonomy ...


___________


--solidarity is achieved in different ways
like parties (don't need to actually house them)


--combating guardian (anti-kraak) companies
after social housing was evicted, guardians were actually preventing squatting, and some of them cooperating / being paid / threathened by guardian companies
conspiring phone calls to guardians, "not supposed to tell on", but one girl told the squatting collectives


--do not just preserve what we had, but keep challenging
info desks / showing examples is important to raise awareness

¶    SESSION 3 ["Roundtable discussion" ~1530]

introductions:
    Grzegorz from Rozbrat, Pozan, Poland http://www.rozbrat.org
    
    Jordan Zinovich, Autonomedia collective NYC USA
    Frank --- of Doel, Belgium, squatted village
    Aja Waalwijk of Ruigoord -- 
    the three latter talk of Futurological Symposium -- the next one is in Lithuania where a part of town of Vilnius has been squatted 
    
    
(negotiations over dinner at Erasmus Univ after the session....)

Poznan, Poland activist gets 3 months in prison ... 2011
details of arrest, trial, conditions ...
send him postcards.

Łukasz Bukowski, a Polish activist sentenced to 3 months in prison after blocking an eviction has been transferred to another facility. You can write to him at:

Łukasz Bukowski s. Zbigniewa
Zakład Karny Gorzów Wielkopolski
ul. Podmiejska 17
66-400 Gorzów Wlkp.

There is also a facebook page devoted to the case: http://www.facebook.com/eksmisjestop/?fref=ts

photo gallery of Rozbrat -- graffiti in defense of the prisoner generated arrest -- police station then occupied -- standoff at the gas station as police cars surrounded... a few weeks ago -- another eviction blockade of elderly couple living in newly privatized house
1 hour standoff ! cops give up! people return to Warsaw
buying inheritance claims from Jewish wartime evictees is a racket... leading to privatizations of houses
corruption via "connections to local authorities" ... crony lawyer with 70 properties mentioned
40 mil € skyscaper project ! "ooh la la!"
eviction was blocked ("in theory when somebody is disabled you can't throw them on the street")
they block evictions, provide legal assistance
other trick if you want to take over a house is: find a family that owned a house before WWII and become a guardian for the inheritor
"guardian for those people" like a 130-year old woman (who is surely dead), and he  now manages the whole house
there is no death certificate, so this sneaky lawyer can "look out for her interests"
and do what he wants with the property

See journal "Baltic Worlds": http://balticworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/BW-1-2-2016-open-access.pdf 
Grzegorz wants us to take a group photo to send to the prisioner to express solidarity


Miguel: Now a statement from Rog social center (Ljubljana)
next week eviction danger, mayor wants to evict and demolition set for June!
asking people to send and show support!
asking for physical presence in Ljubljana.

Nobody thought there would be an eviction, because there has't been one for a long time, but it looks like now it is coming.
Some suggested to them to occupy a new space. But there is a strong culture of holding on to things in the legal gray zonE, with relative success (Metelkova, Rog).
We take and send them a group picture of solidarity.
Rog (second biggest squatting project in Ljubljana, Slovenia, operating for 5+ years) is pretty amazing. People should see it. It should be protected. It's also a monumental building (big bike factory).


One of the main questions we had in previous meetings of SqEK was to what extent can squatting be [congruent] or conflictive with aims of society... one of these is gentrification.
When squatters create dynamic environment, cities take advantage of this, fostering urban speculation, raising the rent, etc. 
Answer to this question is just to say this is not our intention. But what about the effect? If you are doing art for free or with funds for almost nothing, you are cheap for thhem, but their aim is just to transform the areas. 
Presentations today were supposed to address this from different angles. 

Julia.... [missed a bunch] ... the main issue is access to housing in Brazil. In Europe situation is changing fast due to the inflow of refugees. How is EU going to deal with this? 
If the neighbors support squaters they are more likely to remain. If not, they are more easily evicted.

Tim: Really troubled with the good/bad squatter thing

Julia: Here in EU they are seen as creating diversity, and in Brazil they are seen as creating a bad environment.

Aja: Differences in Brazil between culture squats, living squats?

Juiia: Not really. We have people who need housing, and a social movement supports them. 

Gianni: If there is a difference between buildings managed by different groups -- difference between art and political squatters reminds me of Italian distinction between countercultural and political squatters. Recently in Italy there was a wave of squatted theaters in 2011. Teatro Valle @Rome was most famous. They had clear political dimensions. Not only because they opposed cultural policy of government -- but try to implement an autonomous and different way to produce theater events. Building squatted was empty theater or large space. Much of this typical of conservational squatting. People did not want a change of use of the building. As Cinema Palazzo in Rome, intention was to transform it into a bingo hall. Teatro Coppola in Catania occupied since 2011 self-managed cultural activities is under threat by the municipallity because they want to change it to a commercial use. Resistance to the process of transformation. If you can change a theater to a commercial center, all the apartments in the area change in price. Not only the intention, but the effect of squatting.

Aja: Squats in cities different from squats in countryside. Richard Florida, sketches "hot spots" in town made by creative people. Then there comes a commercial alternative, and the people who made it are kicked out. So we address ourselves to the city government. The free places go more and more into "the desert, the industrial desert" [out of the city]. I lost interest in social squatting because these people just want a dog, a house, and a baby. I wanted to live together with people. You have theft and problems, but you learn. It's a laboratory into human relations. I think that is squat, like in this building, that you look for. You have to get rid of a part of your ego.

Jordan: ...Christiania full consensus democracy for almost 40 years. Could be, should be unimaginable to you. We had a wonderful case study where a culture squat in Copenhagen were on the verge of a gentrification issue, and the neighorhood became a center for refugee populations. The squatters decided to change their own political dynamic by engaging  young men on the street who were sexist, predominantly Islamic -- they changed their cultural position to relate directly to these young men. The gentrifiers didn't care to have these young men part of their gentrification. They wanted the iconic art squatting. The men related politically, and also began to define the squats culturally. [This synergy] blocked the gentrification. The Islamic men would not go into a place covered wtih graffiti. The squatters agreed to cover their graffiiti. 
**Grafitti has been changed to... make space inviting to young Islamic men ... which made gentrification uncomfortable ... This was in Bolsjefabrikken - Candy Factory

Aja: It changed to a black building with silver lettering on it. That's where they felt at home.

Jordan: The developers' wives felt uncomfortable. This process began to develop fully last year.

David - This is unconscious process, the speculation of culture. Following the artists? Yes.
speaks about ?? district
they are building new houses, crowded, new people, educated, both working, young people starting families, having jobs. In 7 years changing hard.

Britta ? - thought it was so interesting, big potential for squatting. In early 90s heroin epidemic. Same thing as happened in the [Gaaf?]. It used to be the place for the jazz musicians and the sailors and the prostitutes. They used city marketing to strongly gentrify the place. There is nothing left for the people living there who had the street parties as i remember them,  to have this feeling of interhuman exchange, which is kind of what we all strive for with the squatting, that you have this sense of meaning instead of consuming. 
Gary: This is where we went down to after Hotel New York on the biketour, and around the Fenix Food Market is the area they are talking about
Jeanette: Fear of a certain social group was used to protect the buillding? [to Jordan]
Jordan: It's a culture squat. The building wasn't under threat. But they were comfortable. So they reached out. The gentrification in Copenhgen would protect the squatters. But to engage with the young men who had been poking their heads in, they knew that they were changing the politics for squatters in Copenhgen. At that time the refugee population was just starting to happen, the streams were coming out of Syria.

The developers are intimidated by the actual politics that are playing out on the street.

"They're making a definitive political choice"
"I think there are 2 communities inside it ... with a functional relationship [young men + original squatters --... but no women"
See themselves as kind of "flexible activists"
... But "still do squatter parties"

In Christiania (Denmark) - it was always, also then, illegal to squat - situation is different.
They bought it and so "evaded commercialization".
They had a share-holder systems. "In a few years they had millions."
ca: 1:05 Aja lays it out, the crowd-sharing that enabled Christiania to buy their land.
"It still exists thanks to buying-off the land"
Gentrifiers tried to "normalize" it by "breaking up the squat" -- have each person buy their own part of it
diffferent strategies for breaking up squatting communities

Hans - bike workshop we visited in Rotterdam is very popular wiith immigrants

Alan: Case of "Time share" at La Enternadera of daytime childcare + evening-time squat parties.

Miguel tells about the Tetuan / "Anarchist + Pro-migrant squat" / "Problems happened later anyway"...
a fascist social center moved in, and the community mobilized to get them out

Bolsjefabrikken place was difficult to develop (for the owner) because it was contaminated
they negotiated from the beginning.

Christiania - they were obliged to buy (or go out) - was not their original strategy/intention.
"Buying land is not an easy collective matter".
Dealers could buy land more easily because they made a lot of money.
(Explanation of how Christiania functions now)
Budget is still a collective decision. Concensus democracy "howto" mentioned. 

In "Mini societies" you had people taking care of stuff, not just artists!
In artist groups in squats were usually a very small group that take [...] ??
80% of work was done by the other grups: techies, women, etc - did electricity, roofs, kids, etc !!!
"These people are forgotten in the story of squat development"
MS = autonomous groups ... <<< important for city development

Renting syndicate in Germany - buys houses. (Mithausersyndikat)
Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig, etc 
"Ensuring the left scene keeps lots of houses, so prices cannot go higher in areas"
"A strategy against gentrification" 
Self-organized groups who want to live in houses but they don't want private property. The syndicate ensures that it will never go to market. The political project is that you take the houses from the market so there will be no room for profit. It has 80 (possibly 120???) projects now in Germany.

¶    Linda gives a tour of the Poortgebouw community.
[Audio recording but no notes.]

¶TODO !!!
:
    * ask everybody for posters and PDFs
    * include audio recordings ?
    * [...]