The Utopian Night on the Commons provides the opportunity to envisage the sharing of resources as a potential escape-route out of neoliberalism. The public is invited to participate in debates and to attend performances, as well as to celebrate the end of a successful series of Utopian Nights with the closing party that will take place in the Chinese Garden of Serenity in collaboration with the Mahalla Festival.
The Debates:
On Friday, 23rd and Saturday, 24th November, a series of public debates will attempt to define the Commons by way of pointing out their practicality and addressing their pitfalls. International and local speakers will sit around a table to discuss the idea of the Commons and identify what elements of this could or could not be implemented in Malta. What are the Commons? What kind of Commons can we aspire to achieve? Who owns the Commons? Who writes the laws? Who can join in?
These round-table dialogues will be an occasion for academics and activists, both local and international, to share their views regarding three themes: Work, Environment and Heritage, as well as to engage in discussion about the definition of community and the important distinction between public and common. The question of Common/community begs further thinking about the boundaries thereof: a particularly challenging issue in light of our contemporary predicament marked by the so-called “crisis of migration” (especially so in Malta where the topic has dominated the public discussion for nearly two decades). Who is in and who is out? How can we, on the one hand, develop technologies for belonging and inclusion that transcend the narrow frames of the racial-culturalist identities produced and perpetuated by the nation-state, while, on the other, avoiding the pitfalls of simplistic liberal cosmopolitanism which, in treating the world in purely abstract and flexible terms, aggrieves situated majorities?
The round-table discussions will take place from 2pm to 7pm, on both days, at the Chinese Garden of Serenity, Santa Luċija.
The Performances:
On Friday, 23rd November at 7pm, the Turkish artist Menekse Samanci will present her interactive installation entitled 'Save the Peace'. "Making peace is more difficult than making war. There are always too much reasons for war and too much obstacles for peace. In recent years, the 3rd world war has taken place by representative ways, we need a world wide peace. True peace will come not ony when wars will end but also when we will have imagined how to cohabite together peacefully. In this work I announce the First World Peace, then I try to save it."
On Saturday, 24th November at 7pm, the Tunisian dancer duo Chakib Zidi and Mohamed Ali Agrebi (Dali) will enliven the Chinese Garden of Serenity with their 'Meeting Fingers' performance.
On site the installation 'Is-Siggu' by Charlene Galea : The various chairs have been abandoned in the streets amongst other junk thrown out by the locals. The chair is rusty, completely broken or slightly damaged. The chair is another commodity that needs to be replaced for spending more time indoors, for disconnecting from the life outside and escaping into the individual world. Can the chair instead bring us back together - us who have become strangers to one another? Charlene Galea defines herself as a contemporary flaneuse in the age of disconnectivity.