Summer University engages artists, activists, and scholars in a three-week gathering of sharing and exchanging, doing and showing. The intention is to offer a space for self-organisation where experimentation and recreation can mingle and where knowledge production can be practised with open doors, cutting across disciplines and methods of presentation.
Every evening during the apéro we will meet to determine the shape of the following day's programme, and draw it out on the chalkboard. Multiple activities (workshops, lectures, performances, screenings, readings) will run at any one time, but there is always space left for unsolicited interventions, and other forms of enthusiasm. All are invited to attend and to contribute to any part of the programme.
With the building at capacity, communal mealtimes tend to be set by the intersecting temporalities of the kitchen and our collective metabolism. Beyond this basic observance, the structure of a university day remains open to interpretation.
Recognising the intersecting crises of the present moment – marked by ongoing genocides in Palestine, Sudan, and the DRC, the rise of fascisms across Europe and beyond, and the escalating climate crisis — we’ve borrowed a loose orientation for this year's Summer University from the title of Jairus Banaji's recent book, Wanting Something Completely Different – 111 vignettes of a left-wing culture. The possibilities and the problematics of this abolitionist orientation provide the shared impetus behind the multiple activities (workshops, lectures, performances, screenings, readings) that are scheduled across the three weeks, and which forms the basic armature that is the Summer University programme. In addition to which, there is always space left open for unsolicited interventions, impromptu conventions and other forms of enthusiasm.
Like PAF itself, Summer University is organised and sustained by a changing body of artists, activists, scholars and practitioners. Each year, some new and some familiar faces reproduce this heterogeneous three-week form. This year’s constellation includes Lietje Bauwens, Carina Erdmann, Lilly Markaki, Louise Morelle, William Spendlove and Nikhil Vettukattil.
Everyone is encouraged to help out in the kitchen, and everyone is required to help out around the house. All participants benefit from and contribute to this communal endeavour, and no one is above this commitment.
You can choose to stay for 4 days or 21 days, or anything in between, to pack your itinerary with events or simply relax in the garden with the chickens and play pétanque.
This year we've set aside Wednesday afternoons and Thursday mornings as fallow time in an otherwise abundant programme. Sundays will also be set aside for all but the weekly cleaning performance.
Summer University begins on Sunday evening (August 3rd), with an apéro and introduction before dinner. The 24th is the final day which involves a collective cleaning in which we remove our traces from PAF and leave the building in impeccable condition.
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Whilst many things are flexible at Summer University, some things are not. These include expressions of racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, classism, ableism, body shaming and ageism. Simultaneously, we acknowledge that these systems structure and permeate lived realities all over the world, and as such, live within us as well. We are committed to a process of recognizing and dismantling them within ourselves and others, while also holding compassion for learning and making mistakes.
What was written by the larger PAF community holds for SU as well: “PAF is made of asymmetries. People come from different places, inhabit different bodies, have different experiences, are situated differently in power structures and have different boundaries. Take this into account, challenge your own position and let it be challenged, while respecting other people’s boundaries."
Initiated and run by artists, theoreticians, and practitioners themselves, PAF is an 19-year-old experiment in collectivity and emergent organisation. Neither a production-house, performance venue, nor a formal research centre, it is a platform for those who want to expand the possibilities of their practice, and the conditions of their work.
PAF inhabits an old convent of 3000 m2 dating back to 1820. It is surrounded by several gardens: the front garden, the inner courtyard, and the orchard (with old apple, pear, and nut trees). PAF offers over 50 private and shared bedrooms containing a single or double bed, a sink with hot water, a desk, a chair, and a cupboard. There are 6 large practice based studios, 2 music rooms with various instruments and music equipment, a large dance space, 2 libraries, a media space, a meditation and yoga studio, and many other multi-purpose spaces.
PAF continues to develop on the basis of what each person brings through their engagement. PAF is maintained daily by the people who are on site. Together we practice a performative exception from regimes of private property, in which temporary relations of use and enjoyment entail a reciprocal sense of obligation to others and to things.
Over time, this form of self-organisation has coalesced into four living rules which provide a practical framework for interpreting our relation to the space, its inhabitants, and its environs. They are:
don't leave traces
Clean behind you in order to leave every square centimeter, that is not your private room, all the time available for everybody when you are not using it. Traces are unwanted or uninvited marks (material or immaterial) left in the space or in others.
make it possible for others
Think of this as an opportunity to open up space(s) by showing a rehearsal or a movie, giving a lecture, starting a discussion, cleaning a corridor, or helping somebody.
the do-er decides
But not alone! Things are decided by the ones who do, more than the ones who talk. However, the opportunity to do is not without limits and action should be taken in consideration with others.
mind asymmetries
PAF is made of asymmetries. People come from different places, inhabit different bodies, have different experiences, are situated differently in power structures and have different boundaries. Take this into account, challenge your own position and let it be challenged, while respecting other people’s boundaries.
Read this for more information about PAF, its practices and practicalities.
travel
How to get to PAF
PAF webpage
pa-f.net
