TRANSITION: Keynote by Silvia Federici

This September we re-open MELLY through a TRANSITION program. We wonder what it means to be together again, at a distance, in MELLY? How do we navigate and share our thoughts, ideas, and feelings together and apart?

The TRANSITION series culminates in an online KEYNOTE by scholar, teacher and activist Silvia Federici, followed by a Q&A moderated by curator iLiana Fokianaki.

KEYNOTE
Silvia Federici
"Corona Virus: A Health Crisis or a Political Crisis?"

In her presentation Federici examines how institutional policies have contributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. She also discusses the restructuring of the international economy the crisis is promoting, and how women across the world are responding to it. She argues the pandemic demonstrates this social-economic system is not sustainable, and urges us to create infrastructures enabling us to move society in the direction of the construction of a common good.

Silvia Federici is emerita and Teaching Fellow at Hofstra University, and is renowned for her research and activism at the intersection of women’s, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial struggles. Her publications include ‘Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation’ (1998), and ‘Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women’ (2018).

The KEYNOTE will be moderated by iLiana Fokianaki, critic, curator and director of State of Concept in Athens. The program coincides with a solo exhibition of new work by Kapwani Kiwanga, guest curated by Fokianaki. Fokianaki’s participation is additionally supported by Het Nieuwe Institute, in conjunction with the ‘GOSSIPS’ lecture series, a project in dialogue with Federici’s writing.

The KEYNOTE series is a new monthly platform in Rotterdam to gather in thought and conversation. Each KEYNOTE takes place on Friday nights in MELLY, and online, focusing on the voices of artists and ways of ‘sense-making’ in art and society.