Workshop on Free spaces/free zones

author: carla

report of free spaces workshop

Workshop on Free zones/free place

monday morning

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:

• living/working and public spaces together
• self organisation
• concrete alternatives for this capitalistic society like resaurants, freeshops etc
• being in the middle of the culture
• activities involved in the social movement
• services provided are free or for donations
• direct actions against exclusive wealth
• internal organisation is on a direct democracy base
• it is the proces, not just a building and it is not just about squats

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.

http://squat.net
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 cenntres (french speaking)

http://www.vrijeruimte.nl
amsterdam based collective ' Free space', info@fvrijeruimte.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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