Assemblies are normally held on a scale that allows for direct discussion and participation. However, during the Spanish protest camps of the 15M movement in 2011, massive assemblies defied these notions by blowing up scale, and also challenged the idea of a more or less fixed group that thinks about issues with a certain continuity. These mass assemblies, in turn, emphasized the performativity and the rituality. Julia Ramírez-Blanco addresses the potential and contradictions of those mass assemblies and discusses the evolution of the format toward a more manageable form in the neighborhood assemblies. The experience in Spain can be understood as a political laboratory which can help us for the rebellions that come.
Part of Episode II: “Assemblies as Backbones of Social Movements”
With Oliver Ressler, Julia Ramírez-Blanco & Florian Malzacher
19. February 2021 – Online live stream
In co-production with brut / Vienna
Biography
Julia Ramírez-Blanco is art historian and lecturer in Barcelona University. Author of the book Artistic Utopias of Revolt, she researches the intersections between art, activism and utopian practice. She is currently finishing a book on the aesthetics and politics of the Spanish 15M movement. Ramírez-Blanco has lectured extensively in places such as Princeton or Columbia University, the Sao Paulo Art Museum or the Reina Sofía Museum.
