Public Debate : Express Yourself (While You Can)

Hun­gry for Press Free­dom consists of seve­ral parts :

A month long hun­ger strike per­for­mance where actors ‑each on 24 hour shifts, are confi­ned to a small pri­son cell, under the sur­veillance of ano­ther actor, the pri­son guard. The cell is visible for passerby’s to see.  

A mee­ting point where people inter­es­ted in human rights, are invi­ted to net­work, exchange ideas, and get creative.

Various talks, debates, per­for­mances, work­shops, and film scree­nings to engage with the public and create dialogue.

A lounge space with libra­ry where people can inform themselves.

An ever evol­ving dedi­ca­ted exhi­bi­tion to which people are invi­ted to contribute.

By orga­ni­zing this event we hope to awa­ken the public’s inter­est in everyone’s right to infor­ma­tion, free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of the press.

Program

*all events are free unless specified

Thurs­day, Janua­ry 23, 2020, Ope­ning Night

19h30 : Recep­tion with ope­ning remarks from Antho­ny Bel­lan­ger, Gene­ral Secre­ta­ry of Inter­na­tio­nal Fede­ra­tion of Jour­na­lists, repre­sen­ting more than 600,000 media wor­kers from 146 coun­tries. https://www.ifj.org/ (en/fr)

21h00 : Unvei­ling of Pri­son Cell & Start of Action

Satur­day, Janua­ry 25, 2020, Glo­bal Soli­da­ri­ty with Assange

14h30 – 19h00 : Julian Assange, foun­der of Wiki­Leaks is awai­ting a U.S. extra­di­tion hea­ring in Lon­don where he faces up to 175 years in pri­son for revea­ling war crimes. Come connect with other sup­por­ters, learn more about this extra­or­di­na­ry case and how you can get involved.

Comi­té Free Assange Bel­gium, un col­lec­tive des citoyens consti­tué pour infor­mer sur la situa­tion de Julian Assange et pour orga­ni­ser des actions de sou­tien à Bruxelles. Pré­sen­te­ra et par­le­ra des actions à venir (fr)

Sun­day, Janua­ry 26, 2020, Crea­tive DIY Acti­vism + Film : The Internet’s Own Boy : The Sto­ry of Aaron Swartz

14h30 – 17h00 : Make your own Whist­le­head, Let­ter Wri­ting, Card Making, Badge Making, and more. (en/fr/nl)

17h30 : Scree­ning of docu­men­ta­ry “The Internet’s Own Boy : The Sto­ry of Aaron Swartz” Dir. Brian Knap­pen­ber­ger. A bio­gra­phy film which touches on free­dom to infor­ma­tion. (en)

Thurs­day, Janua­ry 30, 2020, Art and Engagement

20h00 : A conver­sa­tion about the socio-poli­ti­cal res­pon­si­bi­li­ty of artists with Davide Dor­mi­no, Sonia Der­mience & Rosan­na Gangemi.

Davide Dor­mi­no, sculp­tor and visual artist. His piece “Any­thing to Say?” will be on dis­play in Brus­sels bet­ween Jan 29 – 31 at Place de la Monnaie/Muntplein, for more info click here. https://davidedormino.com/

Sonia Der­mience (°1971, BE) stu­died art his­to­ry and had seve­ral posi­tions as cura­tor and edi­tor before she foun­ded Kom­plot in Brus­sels in 2002, a cura­to­rial col­lec­tive concer­ned with contex­tual crea­tive prac­tices. Under the name of Cathe­rine Ver­tige, she conduc­ted exten­sive research into post ’68 col­la­bo­ra­tive art prac­tices in Bel­gium with semi­nars and the two docu­men­ta­ry films ‘Sad In Coun­try’ with Kos­ten Koper. In 2009 Kom­plot foun­ded the par­ti­ci­pa­tive edu­ca­tio­nal pro­gram The Public School Brus­sels, which is soon to become The Kom­plot School Of Cura­ting. Bet­ween 2010 and 2015 Kom­plot was loca­ted in a conver­ted ware­house dedi­ca­ted to exhi­bi­tions, resi­den­cies, and stu­dios. Kom­plot publi­shed three issues of YEAR maga­zine bet­ween 2011 and 2013. Whe­reas Kom­plot increa­sin­gly deve­lops par­ti­ci­pa­tive prac­tices in the public space in Brus­sels. In 2015, Sonia Der­mience re-ini­tia­ted an indi­vi­dual cura­to­rial prac­tice with TRUST, The Copen­ha­gen Arts Fes­ti­val, at Char­lot­ten­borg Kuns­thal, Niko­laj Kuns­thal, Gam­mel Strand, Over­ga­den, Den Frie and other semi-public loca­tions in Copen­ha­gen. More recent­ly, she is wor­king in lin­king green deve­lop­ment and art as a social practice.

Rosan­na Gan­ge­mi (Turin, 1976), jour­na­list, resear­cher (ULB / Sor­bonne Nou­velle) and essayist, she stu­died Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Media and Cultu­ral Heri­tage in Rome, and spe­cia­li­zed in Phi­lo­so­phy of Art and Aes­the­tics in Lille. She has been regu­lar contri­bu­tor for ETC MEDIA and was the edi­tor-in-chief of DROME maga­zine (2004 – 2015), which she co-foun­ded, the­ma­ti­cal­ly explo­ring the com­plexi­ty of contem­po­ra­ry cultu­ral scenes and the constant incur­sions bet­ween arts through paper, web, exhi­bi­tions and other events. She has tea­ched Theo­ry of Images, Visual Arts and Video Art at Uni­ver­si­ty Paris-Est Marne-la-Val­lée. She wrote among others about urban art expe­riences, and par­ti­cu­lar­ly the phe­no­me­no­lo­gy of ‘tag’, about the texts on art of poli­ti­cal Phi­lo­so­pher Gün­ther Anders, the Dar­denne bro­thers’ cine­ma, the theo­ry of gen­der (Muta­men­to sociale, dirit­ti, pari­tà di genere, 2004 ; La tra­ver­sée cultu­relle du genre, 2018). She has the co-edi­tor of Tra due rive. Autri­ci del Nove­cen­to euro­peo sul confi­no (2020). Since 2012 she lives in Brussels.

Q&A to follow.

Fri­day, Janua­ry 31, 2020, Whist­le­blo­wers and Taxi Drivers

19h30 : A talk by Nao­mi Col­vin, who ran the cam­pai­gn that saved Bri­tish-Fin­nish hac­ti­vist Lau­ri Love from being extra­di­ted to the Uni­ted States. She works in whist­le­lo­wing research and poli­cy, as well as impro­ving public unders­tan­ding of key threats to modern digi­tal repor­ting at Bridges for Media Free­dom. She tweets @auerfeld . (en)

Jeu­di 6 Février, 2020, “La liber­té de la presse dans le monde en danger ?”

20h00 : Une pré­sen­ta­tion d’Antho­ny Bel­lan­ger, jour­na­liste, his­to­rien et syn­di­ca­liste fran­çais. Il est le Secré­taire géné­ral de la Fédé­ra­tion inter­na­tio­nale des jour­na­listes (FIJ), dont le siège social est à Bruxelles. La FIJ, pre­mière orga­ni­sa­tion mon­diale de la pro­fes­sion, repré­sente en 2019 plus de 600.000 jour­na­listes dans 146 pays du monde. (fr)

Sun­day, Februa­ry 16, 2020, A Public Debate : Press Free­dom and State Secrets

17h30 : Julian Assange divides opi­nion. The foun­der of the site Wiki­Leaks has been cal­led a ‘trai­tor’ by some and a ‘hero’ by others.  On the wee­kend before his extra­di­tion hea­ring begins in Lon­don, we will debate whe­ther free­dom of press should extend to state secrets. Two teams will present the pros and cons. Come as an obser­ver or bring your ques­tions to chal­lenge the par­ti­ci­pants and be rea­dy to change your mind or those of others.

Brus­sels Deba­ters faci­li­tates the ses­sion. It is one of Belgium’s big­gest deba­ting clubs aiming to make our socie­ty more inclu­sive by empo­we­ring indi­vi­duals to exchange views with people from dif­ferent back­grounds. The group orga­nizes debates on dif­ferent topics eve­ry Wed­nes­day. For more infor­ma­tion, go to : https://www.meetup.com/Brussels-Debaters/.

Thurs­day, Februa­ry 20, 2020, Express Your­self (While You Can)

19h00 : Clo­sing Night, Recep­tion and Open-Mic. Anyone who creates an ori­gi­nal work lin­ked to Press Free­dom is wel­come to per­form it on our tiny stage. Whe­ther a song or a dance, a poem or a joke, bring it on ! Pieces are res­tric­ted to 6 min each. Sign up here : hungryfpf@protonmail.com (all lan­guages welcome)

More Updates coming soon !