Public Programme. Planetary Hardcore: Solidarity, Repair, Resistance

Date: 10 May 2025

Time: 17:00–18:30

Location: The Library, Scuola Grande di San Marco

RSVP: https://forms.gle/Soucem3HaHZXcaF27

Planetary Hardcore builds connection between places in which kindred labours of self-organised repair and reconstruction coalesce in the midst of war. The neighbourly connection between the Ukrainian and Lebanese pavilions functions as a point of departure from which to discuss the potentials (and perils) of solidarity-through-repair across diverse geographical contexts and geopolitical faultlines.

Several (hard)core themes animate the discussion: how does the experience of the emergency vernacular (grassroots reconstruction, and so-called “self-organisation” in general) differ across places subjected to war? How does the wartime “hardcore” – the many layers of the (besieged but unyielding) geological, social and built fabric, from the soil to the roof to the drone canopy—function as a site of radical (rooted) commoning: as a vessel in which memory and evidence are held, and as a terrain from which resistance may spring? How, finally, can the emergency collectivity which coalesces under the volatile conditions of war be converted into a sustainable, equitable and just social settlement?

Participants:

Elia Ayoub (journalist, founder of From the Periphery media collective and Hauntologies.net)

Collective for Architecture Lebanon (architects and theorists, curators of the Lebanese pavilion)

Kseniia Kalmus (co-founder of Livij Bereh, founder of Klyn drones)

Dima Srouji (architect and researcher, Royal College of Art, London)

Husam Abusalem (University of South-Eastern Norway) & Emilio Distretti (Royal College of Art, London)

Yuliya Yurchenko (economist, University of Greenwich; activist, Ukrainian Social Movement)

Moderated by Michał Murawski and Kateryna Rusetska (co-curators of the Ukrainian pavilion)