Imagine! Demand! Enact! A Publication for an Alternative Europe

by Luigi Galimberti

From 4th to 27th October 2013 TRANSEUROPA Festival had been taking place simultaneously in 14 cities across Europe: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin, Bologna, Bratislava, Cluj-Napoca, London, Lublin, Paris, Prague, Sofia, Warsaw, and Brussels. Around 90 events, including art performances, film screenings, concerts, workshops, debates, lectures, urban walks, and bike tours, had been run by the staff and the volunteers of European Alternatives, in cooperation with more than a hundred associations, cultural foundations, governmental institutions and informal youth groups from all over Europe.

TRANSEUROPA Festival’s catalogue, inspired by the slogan “Imagine, Demand, Enact!”, attempts at communicating the values, the activities and the achievements of TRANSEUROPA Festival 2013. Furthermore, it brings together a series of reflections on the current status of Europe, giving space to a plurality of voices, characterized by the most diverse backgrounds, opinions and geographical provenance.

Among the many contributions, we can mention here only a few. Firstly, musician and dancer Hamza Zeytinoğlu has interviewed Erdem Gündüz, better known as “The Standing Man of Taksim Square”, who tells about his experience of artistic resistance during the Turkish uprisings of Spring 2013. Then, artist and professor Efva Lilja writes about “The Politics of Art” and why Europe needs artists for a change. On the other side, European Alternatives’ Elena Dalibot gives a full account of the process that led to the elaboration of the Citizens Manifesto, which has been one of the focuses of the final Transeuropa Forum in Berlin. Furthermore, Professor Engin Isin starts from the tragedy of Lampedusa of 3rd October 2013, when more than 300 African migrants died off the Italian coasts, and goes on with describing and promoting a new and more meaningful concept of European citizenship.

But much more can be found in the five sections of the publication, which are: “Creative Resistance“, “Democracy, Transparency, Participation“, “Building Transeuropean Narratives“, “Crossing Frontiers” and “Lifestyle Hackers“. As an afterword of the publication – but as a foreword to future editions of TRANSEUROPA Festival – the highlights of the past editions of the Festival are also reported on, from Zygmunt Bauman’s opening speech at the then London Festival of Europe in 2007 to Ma Yongfeng artistic intervention at Bologna’s Piazza Verdi in 2012. Enjoy!

TRANSEUROPA Festival Publication (2014), eds. Ségolène Pruvot, Lucile Gemaehling and Luigi Galimberti, London: European Alternatives, pp. 56+viii. Designed by Noémi Zajzon, London. Contributions by Ségolène Pruvot, Mariya Ivancheva, Erdem Gündüz, Elena Dalibot, Dagna Dąbrowiecka, Efva Lilja, Lucile Gemähling, Anna Lodeserto, Engin Isin, Noel Hatch and Chiara Camponeschi. The publication will be distributed in printed format at selected European Alternatives’ events; it is freely available for download or consultation on ISSUU.