Kafkárna / UMPRUM Center for Art and Ecology organized the international symposium COMMUNITY: Building and Living Shared Environments from May 4 to 7, 2023. Participants worked in groups to create community spaces and develop ideas and scenarios for communal living in collaboration with the Prague architectural collective MAK! and the Berlin group raumlabor. They built an outdoor kitchen (led by Adam Wlazel from MAK!), an outdoor classroom (led by Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius from raumlabor), and a pizza oven (led by Jan Haubelt from UMPRUM). This cooperation followed their participation in the reEDOcate me! festival in October 2022 at the Floating University in Berlin. Each evening featured public lectures and film screenings related to community themes. The symposium culminated in an open day on Sunday, showcasing group results, lectures, and artistic performances, including Hydrotherapy directed by artists Lucie Králíková and Tereza Silon.

PROGRAM

Thursday 4. 5. 2023

18:00 Lecture by Tomáš Uhnák: Rethinking transformative potential of alternative food networks and movements (ENG)

20:00 Public screening and discussion – KPZ - Community Supported Agriculture (CZ, 10 min) + Globalize Hope: New film on the history of La Via Campesina (INT, 1h 13min)

 
Friday 5. 5. 2023

19:00 Artist talk by Markéta Adamcová – The Outsider's Flower Bed (ENG)

20:00 Public screening and discussion: Song from the compost: mutating bodies, imploding stars (Eglė Budvytytė, LAT, 2020, 30 min)

 
Saturday 6. 5. 2023

18:00 Lecture by Ivana Mertová – People and Permaculture (ENG)

19:00 Lecture by Terezie Unzeitigová & collaborators – Cohousing Talk (ENG)

21:00 Public screening and discussion: Jiskra / L'Étincelle (Antoine Harari, Valeria Mazzucchi, FR, 2021, 59 min)

 
Sunday 7. 5. 2023

11:00 Artist talk by Eliška Špálová – In-between Composting and Decomposing (ENG)

12:00 Lecture by Benny Foerster-Baldenius – Raumlaborberlin: Acting in Public (Floating University Berlin), (ENG)

13:00 Community lunch

14:00 – 16:00 Presentations of symposium seminar groups
Building the potential of a community
A/ Outdoor classroom (Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius & collaborators)
B/ Outdoor kitchen (Dominik Lang, Adam Wlazel & collaborators)
C/ Clay oven (Jan Haubelt & collaborators)
Feeding a community (Marko Čambor & collaborators)
Inventorying a community (Alžběta Žabová & collaborators)
Community gardening (Ondřej Fous & collaborators)

17:00 Performance Lim Jeong Soo – Call this name twice

15:00 – 18:00 Lucie Králíková (Efemér) & Tereza Silon – Garden Hydrotherapy at Kafkárna