Weaving together the anthropological, aesthetic, and political aspects of assembly-making, What Makes An Assembly? explores the potential of assemblies to reimagine the way democracy is practiced in contemporary societies.
Published by the Evens Foundation & Sternberg Press, this timely publication examines ancestral, transcultural ways of coming together, and how forms of assembly are evolving against a backdrop of growing political unrest. It brings together 25 original essays and conversations with artists, activists, and scholars, alongside three new architectural experiments. The book is available to buy online and in good bookshops.
Assemblies are elementary forms of political life, practiced across history and geographies. In recent decades, multiple social movements have reappropriated these forms of collective organisation as a prominent component of political struggle, used to defend radical visions of democracy. At the same time, governments across the globe have sought to reframe public deliberation as a response to the failures of representative democracy.
How can we analyze this double movement? Can assemblies of equals once again offer a possibility to reimagine the way democratic politics is practised? Or should we see them as a neutralising agent, diverting attention from other forms of political mobilisation? Can assemblies replace other, sometimes more permanent, forms of political organisation? Or is this merely a moment of effervescence intended to lead to more stable political action? To address these questions, we need to move beyond simply asking what assemblies can do, and also examine how they are made.
From assemblies in Indigenous territories in Brazil to those of the Yellow Vests in France, from medieval communes to street parliaments in Africa, from citizen’s assemblies set up by public authorities to practices forged from emancipatory traditions, this cross-disciplinary, critical inquiry examines the tensions that exist in all assemblies between the need for form and the danger of formalization; between the scripts, rituals, and architectural settings from which they derive, and their capacity to perform, deform, and transform.
What Makes An Assembly? Stories, Experiments, and Enquiries
Editors: Anne Davidian & Laurent Jeanpierre.
Contributors: Ayreen Anastas, Andreas Angelidakis, Hans Asenbaum, Frédérique Aït-Touati, Richard Banégas, Sandra Benites, Jean Godfrey Bidima, Patrick Boucheron, Florence Brisset-Foucault, Manuel Callahan, François Cooren, Armando Cutolo, Piersandra Di Matteo, Pascale Dufour, Ben Eersels, Tallulah Frappier, Rene Gabri, Delphine Gardey, Alana Gerecke, Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation, Pablo Lafuente, Laura Levin, Stacey Liou, Catherine Malabou, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Florian Malzacher, Markus Miessen, raumlabor, Philippe Uraflino, Yellow Vests, Aleksandra Wasilkowska, Ana Terra Yawalapiti.
Design: Laure Giletti & Gregory Dapra.
Published by: Sternberg Press
Softcover, 408 pages, ISBN 978-3-95679-645-6.
Launch event with Markus Bader (raumlabor), Markus Miessen, Aleksandra Wasilkowska, and Florian Malzacher. January 21 7:30pm CET at Pro qm, Berlin, Almstadtstrasse 48.
Architects Markus Bader (raumlabor), Markus Miessen and Aleksandra Wasilkowska, and curator and dramaturge Florian Malzacher will discuss the spatial and performative aspects of assembly making and how the increasing variety of forms of assemblies could affect their political impact. The discussion will be moderated by the editors of What Makes An Assembly?: Anne Davidian, curator at the Evens Foundation, and political scientist and sociologist Laurent Jeanpierre.
The event is free to attend and will be in English. More information can be found on the Evens Foundation website.
