report of free spaces workshop

author: carla - 06.09.2002 22:02
http://www.all4all.org//2002/09/376.shtml

hi all of you,

i was very inspired and enthousiastic over the Freespaces/free zones/social centers workshop on the European Peoples'Global Action conference. And i heard from people who were at the Free Shops workshops it was great too. So i would like to continue the contacts/discussion on the autonomy list ( pga2002_autonomataseed.antenna.nl).

Below is the report i made of the workshop on Free spaces with some websites of groups present at the workshop.

It would be great if people would react and write about their place/zone/center on the autonomy list. I will soon write about de Wilde Wereld (self-managed place in Wageningen) and de Woningbouwvereniging Gelderland (housing co-op).

carla

Workshop on Free spaces/free zones

monday morning
author: carla - 02.09.2002 18:48
report of free spaces workshop

About 50 persons, from 13 countries, mostly european.

Worskhop was called together by people from a group in Amsterdam (' Vrije Ruimte) and one in London, which build up a network around Free places in London and now trying to make it nationwide. After an introduction of the situation in Amsterdam at the moment, where it is possible to get buildings provided by the city council mostly for artists and build in this way more free spaces and have own responsibility for living/working and public spaces. In Amsterdam there are about 50 Freeplaces and in the Netherlands as a whole about 200. It is seen by the city council of Amsterdam as essential for the city to have free spaces which are involved in creative processes in the city. Working together with the city council is not accepted everywhere in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is different from the situation in other cities, even in the Netherlands. Political activities are not supported by the Amsterdam city council, just to keep artists in Amsterdam and create more creativity.

After some discussion we came up with characteristics of Free places:

We were talking about a new netwrok from the different free spaces, but there are a lot of netwerks already so we would just mention the different websites so people can contact us.

: news about squats, evictions, solidarity actions
http://www.a-spire.org.uk - diverse collectives squating and providing social resources and spaces for action against capitalism
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk: network of radical housing co-ops, working co-ops and social autonomous centres
http://www.tmcrew.org/laurentinokkupato: social centre and squat in Roma, Italy
http://www.collectifs.net: host for several collectives in Belgium also squats and social centres (french french speaking)
http://www.vrijeruimte.nl: amsterdam based collective 'Free space', infoatfvrijeruimte.nl
http://www.infoladen.de: German infoshops
http://www.disobey.net/mavrhghata: 'Black Cat' social centre in Thessaloniki
http://www.dewildewereld.nl: selfmanagement building in Wageningen, Netherlands
http://www.wbvg.nl: selforganise co-op of different buildings in the Netherlands


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