Silvia Federici & Athina Rachel Tsangari on Commoning & the Commons
Athina Rachel Tsangari, Silvia Federici
»There can be no commons without community.« Silvia Federici
For Silvia Federici, current resistance to the destructive forces of turbo-capitalism is part of an ongoing revolt against the enclosure of communal land and social relations. In Europe, land privatisation began in the late 15th century, coinciding with colonial expansion. In her groundbreaking work Caliban and the Witch, Federici examines the history of women during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. She interprets the three-century-long witch hunts as an unprecedented war against women, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. Women’s power had to be broken for capitalism to flourish.
Heavily affected by displacement and environmental destruction, women continue to play a central role in struggles over the commons today. How can we create new forms of social cooperation that include our natural environment?
According to Federici, commoning is an essential part of our lives that no one force can destroy, because it is constantly recreated as a condition of our existence. Athina Rachel Tsangari has also addressed the commons thematically in her films (Harvest 2024) and in her filmmaking practice, has consistently worked in collectives.
The talk will be held in English. Silvia Federici will be participating digitally.
In cooperation with Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln
Athina Rachel Tsangari
Filmmaker and producer Athina Rachel Tsangari is considered a central figure in the new Greek cinema. She studied comparative literature, philosophy and theatre at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki before completing a master’s degree in performance studies at New York University and studying film at the University of Texas. Her path to cinema came through a role in Richard Linklater’s legendary film Slackers. The Slow Business of Going was her graduation film. She went on to produce films like Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth – with Lanthimos later producing for her acclaimed feature Attenberg, winner of the IFFF Dortmund+Köln Feature Film Award in 2010. This year, Athina Rachel Tsangari is a member of the jury for the International Feature Film Competition at the IFFF Dortmund+Köln.
Films by Athina Rachel Tsangari
Chevalier 2015 | Borgia 2014 | 24 Frames per Century 2013 | The Capsule 2012 | Attenberg 2010 | The Slow Business of Going 2001
Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici (b. 1942) is a feminist activist, author and former Professor of Political Philosophy and International Studies at Hofstra University in Hempstead, USA. She left Italy for the US in 1967 to pursue a PhD in philosophy. In 1972, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective, through which she helped launch the global Wages for Housework campaign. She has conducted research in Nigeria, taught at the University of Port Harcourt and collaborated for decades with international feminist organisations such as Women in Nigeria and Ni Una Menos in Latin America. She was a member of the Midnight Notes Collective. Her most influential work, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004) critically engages with Karl Marx and Michel Foucault and develops their ideas from a feminist perspective. She has published numerous books and essays on Marxist and feminist theory, global resistance to capitalist globalisation and on the power of communities. She lives and works in New York City.
Books by Silvia Federici (selection)
Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism 2020 | Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Common 2019 | Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women 2018 | Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle 2016 | Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation 2004
