The Talking Shop is a new discussion forum organised by the Campaign for Old City Arts Building, Dublin Housing Action and the Provisional University, but open to everyone. Our second session looks at The Creative City.
Seomra Spraoi 6:30 – 8:00 Monday 13th of June
2nd Session – Social Centres
Social centres operate at a distance from commercial and state interests, from consumerism and hierarchical bureaucracies. At the same time this distance can mean that social centres become ‘islanded’, places of escape isolated from the rest of the city and the communities that live in it.
In this session we will discuss the social centre as a place of autonomy, asking: how can it be a space to develop different social relations but also a means of engaging with the city; who or what is the social centre for and how can it adapt in these moments of dramatic change?
People might like to read ‘Zapatismo Urbano’, John Holloway
About the Talking Shop
Through our various projects we’ve come across the need to create time and space for the kind of political discussion that we usually don’t have time for within our campaigns.
We’ll take a different idea in each session and have an open and relaxed discussion, without trying to reach agreement or action. Each session will have a brief introduction.
We believe that, given the exhaustion of older forms of radical politics, today political action needs be accompanied by ongoing discussion and reflection, in order to develop new ideas and strategies that can make a difference here and now. The Talking Shop is also a space of ‘autonomous education’, it offers an alternative to the depoliticised ways in which learning generally takes place in college.
provisional university 