Stream #4 - Who's Afraid of Assembly
One does not need to send the municipality a notification in advance to protest in public in the Netherlands, if, and only if, they are one person. If there are two or more people present, they are considered an assembly, one liable to “regulation.”
It was sometime in January 2023 when Sherine Salla encountered this law through an online document titled “Rules for demonstrations” by the Dutch National Ombudsman. Like a foreshadowing event, the significance of these rules would become apparent later that same year.
Who’s allowed to hold space in public? Who gets to be in control? What is it about a gathering of people that makes it so intimidating, and what potential does it contain? These questions inform “Who’s Afraid of Assembly?” - a participatory work where the contested nature of public presence is brought to the forefront. Together, the participants, along with a facilitator, will attempt to hack this one-person-protest law; what if a series of one-person protests could exist? How much space is necessary between bodies for them to be together but not appear so? What happens if we take a regulatory rule seriously, and stretch it to its limit? In this session, we will attempt to collectively design a speculative scenario where a group marching in public space is potentially in-dispersible.
Maximum number of participants: 10
Duration: 2 hours
Accessibility:
- Moving/Walking from the biennial location to Rotterdam central station (~13 minutes)
- Moving/Walking through crowds in public space (~10 minutes)
- Standing and Moving/Walking together in public for extended periods of time (throughout the workshop)
- Please be prepared for different weather conditions.