Artistic self-organisation and networks of solidarity in times of crisis

Colloquium in cooperation with Office Ukraine – Support for Ukrainian Artists Austria

Date: December 3-4, 2025

December 3, 18:00  Lecture by Rachel Mader Political Pragmatism, Terminological Strategies, and Alternative Economies: The Shift in Self-Perception and Societal Role of Self-Organization in Art 

December 4, 15:00 - 17:00 Panel Discussion with Nastia Khlestova, Natalia Gurova et al., Moderation: Vasilena Gankovska

Department of Cultural Management und Gender Studies (IKM)
Seminarraum E0101
mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
Anton-von-Webern Platz 1
1030 Vienna

Steering Committee: Andrea Glauser (mdw), Natalia Gurova (artist and cultural worker), Nastia Khlestova (Office Ukraine & Ziegel Graz), Barbara Kremser (mdw), Rachel Mader (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts)

Support: Embassy of Switzerland in Austria

Self-organised spaces and initiatives run by artists play a crucial role in the arts and culture in many countries. They exist in a wide variety of forms, and their characteristics, agendas and interrelationships can be understood as responses to the specific social, political and economic conditions that artists face. Through their collective appropriation and use of places, groups of artists and cultural workers claim and create spaces for the emergence, interconnection and visibility of artistic practice, as well as for interaction and networking. Claiming space is crucial to artistic freedom and cultural diversity. At the same time, such collective initiatives are often driven by precarious working and living conditions with which many individual artists are confronted.

At the colloquium “Artistic self-organisation and networks of solidarity in times of crisis” we will address important issues of artistic self-organisation, in particular by illuminating questions of (forced) mobility. Today, a growing number of artists are forced to leave their homes and are displaced elsewhere because of wars, conflicts, political persecution or economic crises. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many artists from Ukraine have taken refuge in other (European) countries. In the Middle East and Central Asia, numerous people have been forced to migrate, including artists from Syria and Afghanistan, because of massive state repression, civil wars, and collective violence. Also, a number of artists are living in exile from various other countries with authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, where their livelihoods and creative activities are threatened. We are particularly interested in the situation of artists and cultural workers who are at risk, and in the question of what artistic self-organisation and space means in exile and in times of war and crisis. Through this colloquium, we will explore the relevance, enabling conditions, and challenges of self-organisation by and with artists in exile, based on examples from Austria, Ukraine, and other countries. We will also discuss concrete ideas and proposals for the development of alliances, mutual learning, collective self-advocacy, and supportive cultural policies.