Constant at European Social Forum
This year the European Social Forum has landed on the grounds of the former Olympic Village in Athens. On the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of May 2006 many European social non-governemental organisations gather to participate in an extensive program of seminars, talks, workshops, concerts and presentations. Constant is part of the ‘Crealab’: a temporary laboratory initiated by the Nantes based art + media collective Apo33. The lab investigates ways to deal with the ‘memory’ of the ESF, the archives, databases, image and audio collections, the streamed programmes and online remains of digital workspaces and data gathered in previous editions of the ESF..
How to keep this information alive and meaningful for future use and interpretation? Is it possible to allow for multiple interpretations and subjective readings? The program with seminars, attending groups, speakers and issues addressed can be found on the website of the 4th ESF and more general info on the mainpage of the ESF.
” The European Social Forum is, alongside Genoa and Seattle, one of the major events of the movement against neoliberal globalization and war, deregulation of labor and poverty, climate change and environmental destruction, violation of democratic rights and sexism, racism and the threat of the far right. Tens of thousands of activists participated in the first, second and third European Social Forums which took place in Florence (2002), Paris (2003) and London (2004).
The same will happen in May 2006: thousands of activists from all around Europe will meet in Athens in order to discuss about the perspectives of “the movement of the movements”, exchange their experiences from their struggle and organize coordination and solidarity networks.
We have marched together against the G8, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Prague, in Genoa, in Evian. We took part, all together, in the siege of the European Union Summits in Thessalonica, Nice, Seville, Brussels. We met during the huge antiwar rallies on the 15th of February 2003, in the mass demonstrations against racism, in working class mobilizations defending pensions, public health and education, in rallies against the destruction of the environment, the “anti”terrorist laws and repression.
Today we are more confident that another world is possible, where people will be before profit.”