 Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the opening of Wiener Festwochen and the first episode of the School of Resistance. My name is Lara Stahl, I'm a curator, writer, maker and researcher, and I'm more than happy to enter into conversation with artists Milo Rao and Tania Bruguera, whom I will introduce in a bit more detail in a moment. Normally, artists and activists, Kei Sara, would have opened the Wiener Festwochen today. About two hours ago, she would have been on stage in the Dirk Theater in Vienna. But as we all know, Covid-19 changed this scenario drastically. And therefore, we will be watching and listening to her true video that she made in the north of Brazil, where she's staying right now. Wiener Festwochen would also have organized a series of talks reflecting upon the heritage of theater director and filmmaker Christoph Schlingensieff, and one of these conversations would have been between Tania Bruguera and Milo Rao, reflecting upon the work he made 20 years ago, Please Love, Austria. And Tania and Milo would have talked about the concept of integration and the idea of artivism. So we're very happy that they are with us today and that we can open the festival virtually, which is on the same time the launch of a series of online conversations under the title of School of Resistance, an initiative of Milo Rao and the city theater of Ghent in Belgium. The School of Resistance takes the dipping of the oil price below zero on April the 20th as a starting due to the Covid-19 crisis as a starting point to reflect upon the possible scenarios this current crisis could lead to and invites experts of change around the world, like politicians, activists, artists and philosophers to reflect together. This project is funded and supported by Ante Ghent, IAPM, Akademiker Künste Berlin, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Medico International and Merseverlach. In two weeks, the next episode will take place with scholar and environmental activist and author from Dana Schieger and climate justice activist and founder of Youth for Future Africa, Vanessa Nakate. And under the title, Making the World Habitable, we will talk about the situation in India and Central Africa from an environmental point of view. For everyone who's listening, you can send questions by mailing to schoolofresistance at AnteGhent.be or by commenting on the live stream on the Facebook pages of AnteGhent in your Festwoche or IAPM or on Twitter by including hashtag School of Resistance. Before I introduce our guests further, I would like to introduce Kei Sara. As we're going to listen to her speech in a moment, and this will be the entry point for a conversation with Milo and Tania. Kei Sara is an Indigenous artist and activist that grew up in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and is committed to the adequate representation of Indigenous people and the preservation of their environment against the threat of mining companies and the agri-business. She will play the role of Antigone in Milo Rios' production of Soko Kles, which is titled Antigone in the Amazon. And then I'm honoured to now go to her speech. Esta loucura tem que acabar. Este discurso começa com muitos contextos. Eu deveria ter subido hoje ao palco do burgo teatro e ter aberto o festivo de Viena. Eu teria sido a primeira indígena a fazer um discurso nesse teatro, que dizia ser o maior e o mais rico teatro do mundo. Eu teria começado com uma citação de um Clássico Europeu, a peça antigona de Soko Kles. Muitas coisas são mostruosas, mas nada é mais mostruoso do que o ser humano. Eu teria vindo até vocês diretamente os nossos ensaios na Amazônia, uma nova ensenação europea brasileira da peça teatral antigona. Eu teria feito o papel da Antigona, que se rebella contra o governo creonte, que não quer permitir o enterro do seu irmão por ser considerado um inimigo do Estado. O couro teria consistido em sobreviventes de uma sacra de semperra pelo governo brasileiro. Teríamos realizado esta nova Antigona em uma estrada fechada que atravessa a Amazônia, aquelas florestas que estão constantemente em chamas. Não teria sido uma peça, mas uma ação, não um ato de arte, mas um ato de resistência contra aquele poder estatal que está destruindo a Amazônia. Mas nada disso aconteceu. A estrada que corta a floresta amazônica não estava fechada e eu não interpretei o papel da Antigona. Estamos todas espalhadas pelo Globo Novamente. E só nos vemos nas telas como agora. Meus amigos europeus me perguntaram como eu estou indo. Eu estou bem. Estou na Amazônia, no norte do Brasil, nas marges do Royapok. A natureza me cerca, ela me protege e nos nutre também. Eu vivo no ritmo dos pássaros, cantando e da chuva. E foi realizado em mim um ritual ancestral para a minha proteção, feito pela minha família. Pela primeira vez, em mais de 500 anos, a Europa e a América estão separadas novamente. Eu pertenço ao terceiro clã do povo tariano, o clã dos trovões. Sou filha da espuma do sangue do deus trovão. Desumido que nós tarianos, é um gente pedra. Mas nos tempos modernos, nós assumimos o corpo humano para poder nos comunicar com as pessoas que vinham até nós. Minha mãe do povo Tucano me deu o nome de Caissara, que significa aquela que cuida dos outros. No lado de meu pai, eu pertenço ao povo tariano. Eu falo com vocês na minha língua materna, que eu sou uma mistura de muitas coisas como todo mundo. Sou tariana e Tucana, mulher, atriz, artista, uma resistente. Falo com vocês sendo tudo isso. Nós nativos somos chamados de índios, mas eu insisto para que sejam chamados de indígenas, porque índio é uma palavra ofensiva e pejorativa que foi imposta a nós pelos invasores, para dizer que nós éramos inferiores. Por isso, precisamos mudar essa realidade. Eu me tornei atriz para poder falar sobre nós, sobre a nossa existência. Há muito tempo, a nossa história é contada pelas palavras dos não-indígenas. Agora é hora de contarmos a nossa própria história. Nosso infortúnio começou quando os espanhóis e portugueses chegaram à nossa terra. Primeiro vieram os soldados depois dos religiosos. Junto com os europeus, chegaram as doenças, milhares de povos morreram e outros milhões morreram nas mãos dos soldados e do clero. Mas esse acontecimento foi esquecido e não está escrito em nenhum lugar. Assassinaram em nome de um único deus e de uma única civilização, em nome do progresso e do lucro. Alguns trabalharam para eles. Negros indígenas, escravizados e assassinados. Hoje, sobraram apenas poucos de nós. Eu sou uma das últimas do povo tariando do terceiro clã. E há poucas semanas chegou até nós mais uma doença vinda do exterior. Novo coronavírus. Já deve ter ouvido falar que em Manaus, a capital do estado do Amazonas, a doença está matando de uma forma particularmente terrível. Não há tempo para funerais adequados. As pessoas são enterradas em balas comuns e que são cobertas de terra por tratores. Também em muitos lugares do mundo, há corpos na rua, como irmão de antigo. Os brancos aproveitam, agora, o caos para penetrar ainda mais profundamente nas florestas. As florestas são sendo quem? Madas. O desmatamento aumentou brutalmente. Quem está fazendo isso? Quem cai na mão dos madeireiros é assassinado. E o que o presidente tem feito? O que ele sempre faz? Apertar na mão de seus apoiadores e zombados mortos. Desde que o vírus surgiu, ele destruiu a sua equipe e ignorou os povos indígenas e são um apelo para nos matar. Ele quer finalizar esses genocídios que acontecem há mais de 500 anos. Sei que vocês estão acostumados com relatos como esses. Quando já é tarde demais, aparecem os videntes. Quando caçandras e tirésias aparecem as tragédias gregas, you know that the disaster has already taken its course. You like our corners, but you don't like what we say. And when you listen to us, you don't understand. The problem is not that you don't know that our florestas are burning and our people are dying. The problem is that you've already gotten used to these facts, but we don't. So I'll say what you all already know. A few years ago, the Amazon fluents dried up for the first time in vivid memories. If we don't act now, the Amazon's ecosystem will collapse. The heart of this planet will stop beating. It's what our callers say, it's what their scientists say. Maybe it's the only thing they agree on. We will disappear if we don't act. We can't be selfish enough to deny the future generation of enjoying and appreciating what nature has to offer. And everything it releases for our survival has been received many times by celebrities in recent weeks. You want to fly less, kill less, steal less, but how can you believe that after more than 500 years of invasion, after millions of years of subjugation of the world, you can come up with a thought that you won't have more destruction. If you listen to yourself, you will only find your heavy conscience. When you travel around the world, you will only find the dirt with which you contaminated us. We can't go back, but we can't stop destroying. I'm not afraid of myself, I'm afraid of our descendants. So it's time for you to be silent, it's time to listen. You need us, the prisoners of your world to be able to understand themselves. Because the thing is so simple, I don't gain in this world only life. And that's why it's good that I'm not on the stage of the Blurge Theater that I'm not talking to you as an actress. Because it's not about art anymore. It's not about theater anymore. Our tragedy happens here and now. In front of our eyes. Maybe, that's what worries me when the audience wants to talk to you. When they know that it's wrong, they know that what they are doing is wrong. That it's wrong in all senses. That this will bring your fall, the fall of your family, the apocalypse. And yet he does it. He criticizes, he hates himself, that this madness must end. Stop being a believer, let's be like before. Because when the illegality becomes the law, the resistance becomes the duty. Let's resist together. Let's be human, each one in their own way united by our differences and by love, by the life that unites each other. Welcome back. The speech you've just heard, the letter of K. Sarah is also published today and tomorrow in several newspapers around the world like Standard, Taz, Deep Takas, Sejdum, Le Soir, Le Monde, Le Pubblica, The Morgens, NRC, The Stage and various platforms in Brazil. Maybe before we start talking about the speech I'd like to introduce our guest a little bit further. Unfortunately, Tania Bruguera is not yet with us, which has to do with technical problems. It's not that easy from Cuba to join us online. So we are hoping that she can join us as soon as possible. We will just start the conversation. I will introduce her. So Tania Bruguera is a Cuban performance artist and activist. She's relying on the concept of Arte Util, which means useful art, and she uses her work to examine political power structures. Her work has been represented on many places, but amongst others, MoMA and Tate Mader. Milo Rau is director, author and artistic director of IEPM which is the International Institute for Political Murder and again in Belgium and he's also the initiator of these series of conversations of the School of Resistance. So Milo, normally I would have started with asking you and Tania to give the first response on speech as a whole before, let's say diving a bit deeper in the things she said. But as Tania is not yet with us, maybe it makes sense that you give us a bit more context as of course this is not a new speech to you and you've been working together. So maybe you could elaborate a little bit on the speech, what it means to you and about the work you've been doing together. Yeah, so I knew Kaisara some, perhaps now half a year ago when we were starting to work properly on Antigone in the Amazon a kind of adaptation of the tragedy of Sophocles today in the north of Brazil so where you could say the capitalist system has its clash with the indigenous cultures and for me it was very important to have in the role of Antigone who is kind of a resistance fighter against Creon as she said in her speech as somebody who is an activist an indigenous activist and then I knew her like this we were starting to work in November together with the landless movement a very big social movement in Brazil two million families occupying lands to give land to the people cutting it out of the big monocultures and so on so a clash with of course the government also now and we wanted to kind of bring all this together it would have premiered a month ago now or three weeks ago now on the block Trans-Semitic we wanted to occupy the street the choir would have built from people from this landless movement and she would have played Antigone but it came differently some weeks ago we came back to Europe she went to her people into the north the very north of Brazil but we wanted to do an opening of the Wiener Festwochen and then what we did we write in dialogue always when I'm doing plays I'm kind of rehearsing and mostly listening in a way and then trying to evaluate how we could find a speech that is kind of universal who could express more than only the situation we are in but perhaps the political situation and I asked her to propose a speech like this and then we sent it back and forth and there was the outcome actually today in the re-translation I found out what she actually then said in the end I knew it more or less and in different newspapers I would say there are different versions of the speech because there are different perspectives you can have on it but mainly I would say it's really a wake up call to say we have to act now if we don't do it we will lose the Amazon so that's kind of I think the message of this whole speech so it's a call to resistance right yes maybe this is also what we could speak on further it's really a pity that Tania is not because she was with us just before but it seems that she's really out of contact we can even I think send her a message on the moment so let's just continue with the two of us if it comes to resistance that she really asks us to resist she says because when lawlessness becomes law resistance becomes duty in her speech I wonder what resistance means to you or how you are giving form to resistance through your work yeah I think in very different ways the quote you made is for me an important quote that I think resistance is law is based on law and is based on justice but sometimes justice and law are not the same in modern society so for example to take another project we did this new version of the gospel together with refugees and immigrants in south Italy of course they are laws to regularize them etc but they are not adopted these laws they are existing and the same there is a agricultural law in Brazil to give land to the people but it is not adopted because of the agro business so you know and that's why movements like landless movements they want to install the law so they are not criminal it's the government that is criminal and I think this is a quite interesting perspective you can have on civil action that you say you came as Jesus says in the new gospel you came to install the law and you don't break the law so I think it's a very different concept from the bourgeois concept which is kind of resistance is criminal etc etc etc I don't think so I think the economic laws we are living in are sometimes not always but sometimes criminal and of course there is a lot of ways to do so you can give space like perhaps when Tanja will join you can give space to voices to knowledge that is just not allowed in our media to print this speech is just important because I think most of the people just doesn't know what happens in north of Brazil I remember the discussions we had to prepare here that's one idea of the School of Resistance two to bring voices together we don't know and then you find out other perspectives on for example the corona crisis that you wouldn't have had before I think the next step of course is direct action is to occupy to produce new myths for example indigenous Antigone or an indigenous activist on stage at the book theater so this is kind of another way we can do as as artists but now I see Tanja is finally joining us yes it is ready Tanja can you hear us okay we can also hear you that's great I'm so happy that you can join us I already introduced you I already introduced this conversation and I asked a first question which was actually a first response to the speech so this would also be what I would like to ask you what are your thoughts when hearing this and specifically we were just talking about this moment when she says when lawlessness becomes law resistance becomes duty wondering what resistance means in both of your works okay let me ask you a question one second yes are we testing or are we live we are live we were waiting for you one second one second one second one second perhaps we can edit it was really difficult to bring her in we tried sorry I'm back can you tell me again no problem so yes we already started and I already introduced this conversation and I've introduced you both and I ask for kind of a general response to the speech of Keisara I've just been listening to so I would be interested to hear your thoughts and specifically we were also reflecting upon this moment where she says that when lawlessness becomes law resistance becomes duty and so I would be interested to hear and Milo was already responding with like what resistance means for you well resistance is to understand pain for me because it is it is it is quite hard because you lose a lot when you resist you lose a lot I mean I always say that injustice is a body it's a feeling that you have in your body it's something that is real and that is not completely let's say theoretical it's something that you feel with your body and we know by now that a lot of laws are made to not to create justice or balance but to create it precisely to protect a group of people in society and that's when the lawlessness comes in because the law is supposed to be for everybody not for a group of people wow absolutely but this is painful resistance is painful because you have the times of politics are very long and the time of life are very short and the times you resist and you feel that nothing is being accomplished and you have to keep going so it is it is a very specific exercise that one has to do as an activist to understand even if you don't see anything moving that you have to keep going you know thanks for that I think it would be interesting to hear more about how you for example in your work try to apply or to break open the law and make sure that this is a more egalitarian principle or it becomes something that can protect a group of people instead of or let's say everyone instead of a group of people but maybe before we enter more into content it would be interesting to hear a little bit for our context because of course school of resistance is born in a moment of crisis which is this Covid-19 crisis and I think it's interesting to say we're all in it together and we're all together but I'm afraid this is not the case and there are quite some differences so it would be interesting to hear a little bit from both of you what this crisis looks like in Cuba, in Germany, in Belgium and the situation I think we are in a double crisis because we are in the crisis of totalitarianism that we were already living before the Covid and we are in the crisis of this huge pandemic, you know, global pandemic and both are related because this pandemic can be I see it as a way to reset everything, you know, as a way to not wait anymore for doing certain things and to decide not wait and just try to change things that don't work and I also feel that we have been operated for too long with a set of ethical paradigms that were not working for a majority of people and they were abusive actually they were pretending to be ethical paradigms and they were actually unethical and so in this case here I think here it has been okay the way they control the virus because they have a huge control over the population so people who have more the more control the government has of the population, the best the response have been in many places because they know exactly where everybody lives who they connect with etc so in that sense it has been good because they immediately have found people and it's quite controllable the problem is that we had this new law 370 which is not new it's for a few years ago but they're using it now where whenever you put something on the internet they don't like the government doesn't like then they go against you either to put you a super high fine that is quite impossible to pay for a majority of people or even imprisonment and this is an interesting tension because also we are living in a moment where where governments want to show the best image except Trump which he is out of this world and he doesn't care about anything but most governments want to show how good they were and how effective they were and anything that goes against that is punished here so that's an interesting tension that we have because through Facebook and internet people have been more and more open about the reality and it doesn't coincide with the propaganda basically yeah so the people are pushing the government to say things on TV and stuff before that never happened that's interesting so in a way you're saying that through this crisis because the digital became the digital realm became so much more dominant in a way public conversation it's interesting because I think from the point of view of Europe it's the other way around a lot of debates are not happening because we are confined in our homes in your case it's the other way around some sort of publicness of public discussion has been possible due actually to dominance of digital use but on the same time you're also making clear that this is quite a vulnerable situation Milo could you share a bit how you've been looking at what's happening in Germany, Belgium, Europe if it comes to a crisis it's quite interesting what Tanja is saying because of course what the crisis is doing at the one at the first moment it's quite of a stop of the whole machine and quite of an opening of the historic situation and you have the impression everything can change for example it was interesting to see how collective action and what you know so the knowledge of scientists how it can be linked immediately you know how discipline so a civic society can be and how collectively we can act if it's a good action or not just this link for me was extremely interesting sociologically on the other hand what a crisis shows and I think of course we are not living in a totalitarian system like Tanja's but you see that normality even becomes more normal and the whole system tries to establish itself and to go back where they were before even more normalized than before and that's I think the moment we are in now going back to normality and everybody understands oh wow neoliberalism will even be stronger we left some people behind it will be even a bigger struggle of everybody against everybody and you really understand that if you don't change the system for example only in the cultural sector if you don't make a separation in between capital and art for example by a basic income it will just continue you have to go back to the ways of producing as before because work and art and capital is linked so we understand that systematically we change now or it's too late because the machine will even get later because we have to run behind what we lost in the last month so now as a director of a theater I see how we try to do even more projects I mean this was the first motivation to do even more in the season we are in now everything because everybody who is relying on you on the institution he needs it and so you are kind of trapped in the whole in the whole system and that's really like kind of how can we wake up out of this dream and everybody takes his position for example it was so interesting to see the intellectuals when she's saying you should now shut up and listen what Europe was doing like giving the interpretation or let's say that the north giving the interpretation of everything even before it happened I think even before Covid-19 appeared the book was finished so before the whole dream the night is over the analysis of the dream and what we have to think about it and what we will do when we wake up was already made and sometimes they just lie a bit back think about it and listen for example to Tania to Kaisara and to understand what globally is happening there is also this anxiety as you are signaling the anxiety of being present I think capitalism brings this anxiety of doing doing doing being being present all the time that now instead of people for example I've been for two months completely disconnected from the world that I do all mine because I was enjoying no I was enjoying being on my own with my thoughts with my friend recuperating the emotional world that we're losing because capitalism is so fast so brutal that you're losing the humanity of it and it was beautiful to again engage with your plans with your family and unfortunately the problem in a crisis everybody reacts and do the right thing as soon as the crisis is finished what happens is people forget we were in crisis and then go back to the same old same old exploitation abuse you know acheness and so that's the problem I am not so excited like I was talking to a friend they say after these people are going to change I'm not so sure because people forget you know but that's interesting what you say because it's a kind of a feeling that was my feeling too it's kind of a disintegration you have the impression you are not linked anymore to anybody and for example this myth or I mean it's a reality of not contacted people in the Amazon and they don't want to be contacted because they don't know that there is something outside and that there is still places in the world that are really functioning as a kind of confinement an eternal confinement and you shouldn't break it up do not be contacted do not be present and as you say you forget this so fast how it is to for example make plans or writing down place you will perhaps never stage but you do it just as a for the script, for the fun I think people have lost the joy of living before this lost the joy and this is kind of giving you okay go and look at the details of the little things and also somehow this kind of global thing is like everybody should have the same rules, should want the same clothes, should want the same goal in the life and no as you say there are other people who go with other rules and this is fantastic I hope we have more of that after this you know and the problem I think is structural I think I'm glad that we talk about the loss because I think it's a structural we need to do a structural change in the world we cannot complain anymore I mean I'm tired of complaining I think we need to build up and I always say doing art for the not yet meaning doing art for the society you want, not the one you have but the style of writing behaving for the moments and the society and the ethics that you want to live in because yeah you might not change the whole world as impossible but at least you can change the way you are interacting with that world you know so I don't want to wait anymore I think we need to start behaving as we want everybody to behave I'm very ready for that Tanya and I think it would be very good to continue that stream of thought but maybe before we go into let's act upon the not yet but on the conditions we would like to have or to see well I think what you're both describing this thing of at the one hand kind of enjoying or reconnecting to let's say being local and maybe also indeed stop being visible presenting having this image of success being part of this production machine but in a way slow down that this is something that we embrace and on the same time I hear you both saying well there's not so much time to wait we should act now and I think this is a conflict that I hear with a lot of people and I wonder how you are both dealing with that can we slow down or is this actually very risky because maybe the system doesn't slow down and is ready to pop up whenever it can yeah I mean one one possible answer to it to this is I think there are two there are two lines of it there is of course the structural line that there is a system being in the upcoming again and you can't kind of just slow down because then you are left behind and that's what what is happening now at the very moment so you can't slow it down I think we have really structurally work on the institutions and that's why I think it's important to in wait institutions and to change institutions and perhaps to create new institutions symbolic institutions of the future that you would say okay let's create the institution in which we can work by then changing the whole system how we want to work to create the future we want to have how can we use for example a city theater or only a little project in a way that it makes sense as an institute of change so that's why we try to work in ways which it seems very difficult and I have the impression I found out a lot about connecting in the last weeks for example globally that I went back on the books I had I was perhaps very different from Tanya I was in many many live streams and discussions and I was extremely happy for example to see how unimportant it is the image you have because we have now three shitty images we are talking together in different places of the world it's all mixed together in New York to be staged in Vienna you know and then Kaisara sent us a video that she made somehow with her iPhone this morning and we kind of subtitled it and it's not like the big thing in the book theater and thousand people and she flies in and she does it etc no it's a different way of working together and I think this is really important to find out this but on the other hand to end with for me there is really big structure change that has to be done and I'm always coming back on the on the general basic income that as long we are depending from producing presenting showing being present and if we are not we will lose everything we can't pay our bills so how could we ever disconnect if we don't create a parallel system in which we can kind of produce another way absolutely now I think they are different I mean I totally agree with you and they are different aspects one is the laws because we need the change to be in place for a long time the second one is institutions because these are the people who implement that the culture of the law let's say of how we interact with each other or can propose an alternative but then we have to also create education like an emotional and ethical and civic education for people because people are also part of the I mean the laws and the system is not something alien it's part of what we are been living and it has changed all of us it has put this anxiety on us it has put these desires on us that are not interesting or important so I think we also need to create a long-term process with emotional culture as well and another thing that you were talking is interesting because now we are doing all of this immediacy which I think is an interesting way to substitute the touch immediacy has substituted touching somebody in a way but at the same time I wonder if we could slow down but not slow down in the sense like those make sure that you take the time things are needed because the other thing I'm nervous is about we live before in this kind of world where celebrity and all of these were substituting art people wanted to be famous not to do an artwork that lasted for 300 years you know what I mean in terms of what gives to be so I think this is an interesting that's what I'm saying about slow as well because I'm also wonder about the quality of in the future of art if we keep with this quick you know what I mean like when you read that there you have something that was said I don't know hundreds of years before but you still feel about it how can we keep this the feel of art and the feel of justice beyond the immediacy I don't know I don't have any answer I'm just asking this question that I'm asking myself now because if you have seven zooms a week you know or whatever like how we keep the stimulation but also the depth there is a balance between being stimulated and also to have depth in your thoughts and also time to implement we're talking about production when I use the word implementation actually because when I use it might be a different way for visual arts production is more about making things happen whether for me implementation is a process where you bring the people for whom the work is as part of the process of creating something and I think this is also for me I like to see after this time of COVID that people are also taking in consideration in a different way not only as a spectator or participants but also as implementers the people who will implement something in their space in their life and also I don't know it's interesting I think you've been talking before Tanya also in interviews you're saying it also in the beginning like the importance of emotions or the importance of effect and that we're emotional beings and I think you're both actually artists you and me that work a lot with that and try to let's say go beyond I don't know a very experimental work that's only for a group of insiders or a very intellectual but that you are looking this is maybe also a question is actually a way for a language that could potentially reach a lot more people absolutely I have a concept I use for my work sometimes I have to create a concept because I don't feel I can explain myself well so I use this as a device and the concept is in Spanish because sometimes Spanish is better than English is richer is aesthetic is the word for aesthetics but in Spanish if you divide the word in two is EST wishing in Latin mean the verb to be it is and ethics which I love because for me the idea of aesthetic as the appreciation and development of the transformation through ethics is fascinating and it's something I'm very interested at I've seen only aesthetic as how you best do something formally etc but also how can you through this experiment this emotional moment etc generate a new aesthetic ethical real ethical paradigm and that's the beauty of it so where aesthetics and ethics actually become in a way the two sides of the same coin right and they are always in relation to each other I wanted actually to jump to something but now that we're here maybe it's interesting to both hear your response on the work of Schling and Zief yeah can I just like interfere a second because I see that people is asking why Kaisara is not here as part of discussions and sometimes and I think it's interesting just to know that it is impossible she sent us this video it takes 8 hours to only upload a 10 minutes video she's in the middle of the Amazon and it was crazy to only get this speech made and sent to us so it's completely impossible that she's with us I hope soon she will yes thanks for saying that it's true I didn't saw it in the chat immediately or I didn't got that this is actually a question already coming from and it's of course a very understandable one because one of the voices that we would like to hear more but I think you contextualize very well why and I think one of the questions that we are also I'd like to pose to you both has to do of course with this possibility of international collaboration and on the same time of course feeling very much constrained so the international exchanges under attack we could say it wasn't for capital it wasn't for goods it is now for people it has always been for certain people and not for others and the questions of course what kind of future we will go to if it comes to that Milo you sounded quite positive you were saying like I like this idea of being connected to all these people in different ways which seems like you are actually embracing this digital realm as something that might be progressive to whereas of course we could also have questions or doubts about that yeah I mean you know theater is an extremely practical work it's a collective work you have to actually you kind of live together for weeks and for months and that's how a play is constructed it's not that somebody has an idea or a text you can do theater like this but I I don't and it's something that is developing and even I have perhaps to add a little pessimistic moments to it it was very difficult and for me even a bit disappointing to do the speech together with Keisara like this that you send something somebody sends back it takes 6 hours takes 8 hours then you find the chat you can like talk for 3 minutes it's over you don't reach it other anymore there are misunderstandings but what I found out and it was quite interesting by sending these texts to Amazonia and back to here and check it together there were big misunderstandings we weren't understanding each other and then we started by listening to trying to understand to make an interpretation perhaps it was just like lost in translation and this was a very interesting process by being disconnected so that's for me one interesting point but it's a small thing the other thing it's the first time I meet Tanya now in life but we kind of reflected a lot one on the work of the other etc and even the speech was called against integration Tanya was preparing a school of integration so we were on the same topics but we never met because actually this kind of possibility to be connected like this to have a school of resistance a debate like this was even not for me I didn't do it I just like I can't go to Vienna I can't go there so we will not meet so I just didn't do it and then we were planning to do this school of resistance like next year we're flying in a lot of people and we found out it's faster it's more simple it's more convenient and it's kind of more I don't know there's more outcome if we do it like this so this is a kind of ecological you know it's quite important here I guess you should name this the first one it's more ecological and it's much more of course yeah it's ecological of course the problem is that a theater is art of presence so one time we have to meet again me and Keisara or there will be no Antigone Damson and she has to be on stage and we have to be in the same space somehow you know I think no I am very it's very it kind of goes well with my plans because I was super tired of traveling and I actually had this decide to not travel after this festival in Vienna for six months because I was really I think it was not healthy for me to do this one day here one day there what are you giving people or what is the quality of the energy you're giving to people and but at the same time I think this is a very good advice it helps a lot and more people can be and now this many people can see what is happening it's fantastic but I have to say that when I have been in events the moments that are more productive for me is when you may be sitting down you me lo me you having a beer where there is no pressure to be smart or nice or whatever and all of a sudden you start saying whatever and something amazing comes up we have to see how can we do that in this format as well because this format is really effective it's really good at many levels ecological is more healthy for people to be in their house and just having but it would be nice to to create this a way in which we can be loose and this kind of accidents or join us happens between people because every time I have one of these it's like a meeting this connects again to this idea of slowing down in the sense of creating conditions in which something can happen that we couldn't predict yet whereas here I think we're all performing right now and we want to be to the point and we know we have listeners etc whereas sometimes maybe the new ideas or the alternative or what hasn't been articulated yet can only come from a slower way of being together and I guess one of my big questions is how this slowing down can be strong enough against a system that doesn't slow down on the contrary I'm a bit conflicted because there's a question from the audience that is very interesting but quite specific we were still talking about ethics and aesthetics and I wanted to make a bridge to sling and thief and also this question about why Keisara is not part of the discussions stays a bit with me and I wonder maybe also for listeners so I wonder maybe if we start with that I mean there's a clear demand of Keisara and her speech to stop talking and listen, she really asks us to listen and still we're here talking and I guess you're both also seen as very important political artist of these times, you get a lot of invitations, Tania was sharing how much he's travelling I know a bit how much you're travelling Mila as well like how are you and maybe this also connects a little bit to the question that is asked and that I will share with you in a bit how are you using these power or these platforms to speak in order for actually to listen in a way or maybe amplify voices of other people Yeah I mean it would be interesting perhaps also a bit kind of a parallel experience of Tania and me is that as a director of course you are somebody as a theater director especially you are somebody that constructs platforms where things can happen and stories are told and for example I never wrote a book about myself because I'm talking true artists, true projects and true symbolic rooms, institutions that can be plays, can be an adaptation can be a tribunal like the Congo Tribunal, can be part of a bible film, can be this kind of school of resistance because this is the first let's say chapter opening of Wino Festwoch at the same time in the later sessions I will not be present, perhaps I will host one of the sessions or even not because I think it's important to invite of course perspectives that are not present all the time in this kind of discussions and I think everybody who is connected here more or less knows what I am saying normally so I think this is one role of course we have to be kind of a loudspeaker somebody who can construct platforms especially in that time because when I read this you should shut up and you should listen and at the same time I had read this Lavershi Shakespeare book in my hand I was thinking of I mean we are talking all the time explaining all the time and it's too much, it's too much it's time to wait and to see what happens and try to connect and I think for me that's now the thing to do to connect knowledge to connect ways of practice to find spaces where you can do this because the problem of theatre is that I don't know we call a collective when people that knew each other in school, in art school are doing then plays together we call this a collective but it's not a collective it's just a repetition of the same you know and I think we have to find places where we bring people together that would never think together and then there is more than listening there is a dialogue and out of this dialogue comes something that nobody knew before and this is my this is my dream of the art of now and the future That's pretty cool. Well I think in my case the way I do it is I am very aware of power dynamics sometimes when they exist and I try what I'm trying to do with my work is opening spaces like you too going to a place trying to open spaces pushing boundaries meaning that I would take the risk and then as soon as these boundaries are being pushed and the space is open then I invite others to come because I think in my case I work with immigrants or with vulnerable populations or with activists maybe in Cuba who are not so well known and I think it's important that people like us who have some power or some visibility take the risk the personal risk, the human risk, the body risk all the risk, political risk but not because we are the one talking for others it's because we are the ones who even if we lost power if we lost privilege we still have some so we can actually give it away in order for things to happen but as soon as we have that we need to withdraw that's what I do as soon as this is up I withdraw and let other people go in because I think what we can do as political artists is not only do public reflections I don't know incite people to protest or whatever with our work but also to create as you say platform where other people can go and not because of you just because of them they have the need and the right to have it so I think in this case for me that's why I work so much with institutions that I create because it's a framework people understand when you work with an institution that you create even if it's fake or it's temporary people understand that it's a platform for example the international that you started maybe for everyone that's a known project or now in Cuba for example have the Institute of Art and Activism which is called the small name is INSTAR which is the verb in Spanish that means to to invite people to push people to do something so this is something that we are creating here that has been amazing and it's opening up you know and also the thing is for us we can try and fail all the people do not have the privilege to fail so they need spaces where they can fail together and it's fine maybe to go quickly to a question because I have a series of questions I want to continue but maybe to give the floor to someone from the audience someone who's following us so someone would like to know a little bit more Tania about your statement that laws should protect everyone instead of a small group Can you say it again? Your statement that laws should protect everyone instead of a specific group and she agrees that laws are there to prevent injustice but she wonders what we do with laws that are precisely there actually to protect minorities What do we do with those laws to protect minorities? Yeah of course we don't have the person here but this is what I presume like are you feeling those laws are not there or they're not for like how are we? They are not enough they're not enough of those laws but the other thing is we have to understand that the law is always coming after the fact so laws are always a posteriori you know like they come after the dilemma has been solved by society when that's mostly where everybody has agreed on something and I feel that the law should be used in other ways in the way to educate people instead of the law to repress and to force you to be morally some way because for me the problem with the law is many times it relates to morals instead of ethics and then I feel like it would be better if we start doing laws that prevent things that educate with the the existing of the law instead of punishing you because already everybody agreed that this is wrong or right and this is a big dilemma the non-synchronicity of the law with reality Interesting you're almost proposing like a priori like like laws that be developed before the damage is done in a way There is a system that I use for my work in Arte Util and useful art which is and a lot of my friends we deal with these the activists in Spanish it's called Alegal in English you don't have it Alegal is a concept of the law you have it in German? No no no but I mentioned it's kind of parallel to the law Yeah so precisely Alegal is when you behave in a way that the law has not yet codified so it's not illegal because the law did not have this image social image but you are doing it so it is I love it because it's beyond the law so it's something that you feel is right it's not illegal because they haven't considered this yet to regulate this yet but you feel is the right ethical way to behave so I think that's a way that I answer to this because the laws are very slow they unfortunately at least in the United States I don't know Europe you pay to have your laws which I think is immoral and horrible the people who have the money and the you know and the lobby people is the one who get the laws and it has nothing to do with with the justice or with ethics or with the sense of an image of who we are as a society so I think let's start doing illegal actions as we think Exactly so it's again existing laws are more protecting the system, the system that benefits the few and not everyone and I think you both are working a lot with the idea of institutions you made several projects where you're also in a way pre-enacting trials that are not happening in reality yet but should and can already happen through art and then maybe in that way that's a go over reality I think I think it's important to do things illegal and not illegal because when you do something illegal you give all the power to that law and to that government and this is why creativity This is absolutely the point especially when you work I guess Tanya and Kuba but also when you work in Amazonia when you work for example the landless movement, the occupation they do are completely not illegal the monocultures are illegal or the land is divided illegally against the constitution of Brazil and we have of course for example the law and the constitution, the article that you can occupy land if this land is illegally in the hands of somebody we have in the German constitution we have in the Italian constitution and that's why when we for me it's kind of, there's this quote when we did the Jesus film last year when Jesus says I didn't come to abolish the law I came to fulfill it because for example it's impossible for migrants to be illegal it's not possible in the constitution, in the European constitution and I'm even not talking about the human rights because this is perhaps only bourgeois morality but I'm talking about the constitution of every nation and the whole European Union and it's not possible that somebody enters Europe when it's illegal this is an invention, it's criminal and all of these are inventions these are all inventions that are against the constitution and so the move we do normally with our so-called symbolic crazy utopian institutions we just try to use the laws we all agree in our constitution absolutely yes that's kind of sad also in a way that we like to attribute utopian thinking to us that in a way we're just following agreements, it has made treaties that have been made years and years ago that we seem not to be able to to follow there's another question or two questions here the first one I'm not sure completely so let's try to figure it out together so someone says that she wonders what Tania and Milo said is to overcome learned helplessness that men have learned under the systematic control until now yeah I'm not entirely sure what this question is I agree I would do a very fast interpretation of it because I think this is really this is for me crucial that you live in a system and you have the impression it has to go like this and it's kind of the structure and it works like this that's how I was educated and that's why it's important what Tania says we need another education where you understand that what you live is by historical accident normalized and you are not completely not helpless everything, every institution we are living in at one moment was established the outcome of a political or social struggle by political or social struggle and that's for me I thought perhaps we will also talk about the the method or the framework of integration because of course normalization tries to integrate everything that there is no illegality, there is no space you know, no space outside everything is took into the structure as normalized and I'm going to say I'm going to say when you are in this big helpless dream of capitalism you understand that for example the slaves they don't want to abolish slavery they want to become masters you know, it's a kind of from all perspective you have this helplessness and that's the big problem and I think the big chance for one moment it stops and you see we can just say we don't continue it's possible I think I'm glad that you talk about this because when I put the title school of integration it was ironic but I remind when they told me that you were doing this school of resistance and the other project about non-integration and stuff like that I loved it because you were criticizing my project in a way and I loved it because you reminded me that sometime in politics you can be ironic sometime when you're dealing you cannot be ironic because then you get lost in the irony because irony is very easy to manipulate by people who don't want to do the stuff so I actually thank you for that thank you maybe just to contextualize for some people so Tanya you were going to start a school for integration which would be more than 60 classes mediated and teach by migrant communities in Vienna which have been part of the Wiener Festival and the speech that there were classes by the immigrants to the Viennese to the locals places but it's interesting because in the discussion with the activists that were working in collaboration for this project we had many meetings because they didn't like integration also so maybe before you started Emilio speech or text that he wrote together with Kei Sara was actually under the title Against Integration which is also the title for the next season and Against that in a way we have an interesting opposite here of Against Integration School for integration why were the people not happy with this integration terminology Tanya because the same reason you're talking about because the same reasons Emilio is giving because they were there is a problematic concept is a very problematic concept because also integration usually seen as the person who arrives lose his own identity to become part of what is there you know so I think there is this force erasure cultural erasure that is quite brutal to be honest and not natural so I think they were against that very much so so I can go back to them now I mean what is interesting of course is that you shifted it around so it's the School of Integration for the Viennese people that's supposed to be integrated already so interestingly enough they're supposed to be they're supposed to be integrated with the people who arrive because the problem is yes it's okay to learn German okay that's fine but also they should they should learn Swahili as well the Viennese should learn Swahili you know Arabic or whatever you know would not be such a problem if this would be equal but it's always of course in opposition to a dominant culture and also the fact that for me there is a problem everywhere I do with the procession of immigrants immigrants are always welcomed as long as they entertain or they serve or they dance make music or they're happy or they're cooking for you they are showing your clothes so that's the problem it's kind of a natural concept be everybody's dancing yeah and also it seems like it's still a kind of a slave dynamic where you are serving me and what about all the knowledge these people come with I always say that we create a factory of garbage knowledge because all these people come with amazing knowledge and you know this very well Milo because you'll be traveling and talking to all these people have an amazing political education amazing emotional education and all of this is erased because they're only here to serve us to do the job you don't want or the you know I think that in a crisis now in a way feels all the time problematic also to me because I have constantly this feeling like we were already in a crisis but we just called it normality which was maybe the real crisis and the question and I'm thinking about this because I think in the case of migrants this huge huge fundamental inequality becomes very clear there's a response from the audience in a question where someone would like to hear your thoughts as Kei Serra is talking about resistance and about the ten years that are left before the planet lungs die shouldn't we not be in the streets instead of the theater which connects a little bit to another question about art let's say post-COVID art I mean what can art be or mean in a world a post-COVID 19 world or maybe world where pandemics will stay what is the role of art I mean you've been already talking a little bit about this ethics aesthetics but maybe this specific remark about shouldn't we not be in the streets I think we should have as many different kind of art as possible I am always against any kind of normal kind of generalization about things and this kind of fake satisfaction that because everything looks like you think is okay I think we need to have we were having a crisis before the COVID with emotions because emotions were being reduced to very generic category like like don't like angry happy these of course because Facebook of course Trump all of these were emotion has been reduced into a kind of monolithic and I think art can be a place where people can find the complexity of emotions and the complexity of situations and not everybody reset emotionally the same way so why we want to have on the street or in the theater or it should be everything and as much as possible but the most important is to make sure we also take care of artists we pay them we treat them respectfully you know but I don't know what I mean just before you sort of just to add maybe in relation to the last thing Tania saying of course we have at least in Europe this huge bunch of articles saying like all these art institutions are broke and are having a problem and they won't be able to exist so people are really looking for let's say artists and on the other hand you could maybe ask yourself like is it artists we should save right now like is this about Milo Kujoum I just would like to really focus on the question because she's saying how are you dealing with the fact that this planet is dead in 10 years so how is the reaction you have on that and it seems and I see that we continue talking and that's fine but I see that we are kind of it's kind of impossible to react to this so what should art do or perhaps I don't know what should all representative systems do they should this thing that in a strange way is imaginary externalized somewhere in Amazonia but everything is connected but somewhere it's somewhere else in the future that we can't touch but it's only 10 years I think the work of art is to bring this in to make it visible to kind of educate us to deal with it to only feel it you know and I think to really understand we are not in a dramatic situation where we can kind of change a bit the institution and give perhaps this or that to the artists or I don't know what we are in a tragic institution we have to take some decisions we have to bring the machine down how can we as artists intellectuals curators whatever I mean that's our field I'm not I'm not a real political activist I'm behaving sometimes or I'm giving a platform but I'm somebody who can connect and who can represent and that's what I know to do and for me the big work of the next 10 years and of tomorrow and of now and perhaps even of this school of resistance is to make it real to make these things real and connect what we know and what we do because and the most horrible of crayon listening to him is he knows that he's going directly to the apocalypse and he hates himself for that but he just continues you know and to change that that's for me the the meaning of even a discussion like this one but of course you're both very much referring still to knowing we have to know we have to make this knowledge visible it has to be effective so it has to touch us emotional and on the same time case says but actually you all know you know already the horrible thing is you don't you're used to know it and how is how is how is I mean this is for me the tragic moment how is knowledge linked to action for example when you when you when you read king really post so let's say the most classical of all prejudice the strange thing is that from the beginning on king really post knows he killed his father and de facto his mother and everybody tells him that he's deeply perverse his normality is perverse and he knows it because in the first scene the choir tells him and then a garden arrives and tells again but he's just not able to connect to this knowledge you know and that's the whole tragic plays are just about this impossibility of connecting and I have to say that for me moments in theater they are called cathartic they are called I don't know you can have different terms how do you connect emotionally and then in action to what you know that's all what is about for me that's all what is about knowing is nothing doing is nothing connecting is the thing and yeah I also think it's about creating art that understand the consequences and deal with the consequences no art where you the consequences is not is not something you haven't thought of but it's part of the process of creating the work you know what I mean that you have responsibility over the consequence and in that sense it is about I always talk about art that is useful or that is a tool because I almost feel and I agree with Milo I almost feel that now art has shown people this importance over this time of isolation etc and it's important as a tool so I also think I also see art and the future as a tool so it is done by more people but also as a tool you know like it's something that will help people to overcome fear to overcome the misunderstanding between each other yeah at the same time there is this thing that you were speaking about as if time is also not concoent or how are you saying this that you have the feeling that you can know something but before the system starts to also act upon you said life is too short and change too slow in a way and I think this is also something I can very much relate to this is this feeling of helplessness one of the questions was in 10 years the green lungs you know so we know the climate catastrophe is already there it's not something abstract it's already happening people are suffering people are fleeing because of this and still we don't see the system responding so how do we make this frustration productive I guess it's also a question do you want to still respond on this because we have been touching upon this of course as I go to because we also slowly have to round up okay no just very quickly it's about interest the problem is we have been living up to now in a world where interest trumps everything else trumps reality trumps justice trumps the truth you know so I think we need to change that that's so true that's so true I can that could be a last sentence but do you have one question more it feels now a little bit stupid but it was still hanging in the air and also because this was would have been one of the topics of the conversation at the festival so Schlingensee heritage and this piece of Austria that actually your work school of integration was also using this title piece of Austria school of integration Tania and I wonder like 20 years ago looking back at this work and it's maybe important to give to contextualize a little bit for the people that don't know so Schlingensee placed a container on the square in Vienna where he placed 12 asylum seekers and he played a bit with his big broader genre that was then very popular and upcoming where people in Austria could vote for the one they didn't like and then I think two people per day and this lasted a week and they were filmed 24-7 and two people per day had to leave which meant were deported back to their country and the one that would win would get a financial price and the possibility of Austrian citizenship by marrying someone I think it's interesting also in relation to ethics, aesthetics like how do you position yourself to work like this? I think this work has been often framed as one of the most political works with a lot of impact because of the reactions and the fact that it became a political discussion on the square by bystanders how are you feeling about the choices in this work? No please Tania I don't have so much to say about it No no no No please No I think now he looks like a visionary but I heard he was a pain in the ass so I think we should be more pain in the asses as artists and less complacent in a way but I feel I really like his work a lot I knew about it since 2005 and I actually dedicated his work the piece I did here in 2014 in the revolution square to him because I was using the same methodology and one of the things I feel are still very current in his what I understand about his work I might be wrong I'm not an expert is the tension between reality and the construction of an image of a metaphor and I like very much especially in that piece that you think is true you know the fact that you feel this is really happening to somebody is actually opening up the honesty of the reaction to people because in theater but also in visual arts people have a codified way to behave you know you have to applaud you have to like it and this completely broke all the agreements you have with audiences you know and the audience transform into citizens they are not audiences anymore they are just citizens they are individual people and I think that is absolutely fascinating putting this ethical ethical dilemma and at the same time when you see the documentary you see how much he was struggling for this to take energy and how much he actually provoked people because it is true and you see the anxiety and the agony of the artist because also people don't care you know that piece also shows that you have to really be extremely intense for people to care in a way thanks Milo yeah very short I think what for me is very interesting that piece that became a classic you would even say you learn it at art school you watch once the container show etc of course you see how the machine starts in the beginning how everybody thinks nothing will happen then the media etc etc but for me the interesting thing is and that's for me performance or theater is that you representing is not interesting machine can represent what is interesting that the representation itself becomes real it's just made up and these are not real refugees and they will not be deported and they will not marry an Austrian woman etc etc but it becomes real in the reaction and in the kind of taking the responsibility of even the country itself the media as if they would understand but this is a real situation we have to we have to say no no no it's not etc etc and then as you describe it from moral you go into ethics and from kind of representing and making fun and irony it's a very very postmodern approach you know so you go somewhere else and that's what is very different from from Schlingenseif to other postmodern artists because they kind of stayed in this ironic moment I like it to start it up with irony over identification big brother etc etc all the media cliches you know but he went somewhere completely else like a public ritual of responsibility and this is this is great this is Greek theater somehow you know exactly I was going to say now this it's Greek theater yeah yeah it's an interesting response because I would have thought that you would both have been a bit more critical maybe although there is something in what you say now me know where you end because if you were saying Tanja that it's about acting upon a world as you would wish the world to be or you feel this would be an off world then in a way his approach is much more cynical no yeah but at the same time before you go there you have to show people how how double moral they are and how hypocritical they are and how fucked up they are so before you have you construct you have to be construct no I'm guessing interesting destroy before you build we have to be this pain in the ass is so that's what you're saying yes and I think art should be more real and that's what he has as Milo was saying that the piece is real the emotions were real the problem is that the reality is not real I didn't see people dying from corona I didn't see them in the streets I didn't see the Amazon burning I didn't see you know this is all happening but it's not real so this is the work of art not only of art of course but for me as an artist to translate it into reality thank you that's beautiful it's interesting to hear two people that are also so much let's say criticizing power that also I get to understand the machinery how power also operates and because in the end what is real I mean power is I guess being able to decide what is real and so maybe it's also about what kind of power we can use in order for let's say our art projects to become more real than reality or what we have been deciding to look at as reality thank you so much Tania Bruguera, Milo Rao it was a great pleasure thank you so much for sharing your thoughts in this weird and strange and hopeful and pessimistic times on the same time let's stay in contact and try to really change this world and be the pin the S's as Tania said just a technical in two weeks the School of Resistance will be back with Fondana Siva and with Vanessa Nakate talking about the post COVID or with COVID-19 world from an environmentalist point of view again thank you so much thank you and care and be healthy it's a pleasure meeting you guys twice so