New online platform for research, resources and discussion

L'Internationale and KASK / School of Arts of University College Ghent (LINK) are proud to announce the launch of the new online platform for research, resources and discussion, L'Internationale Online, on 18 September 2014. With KASK as coordinator, L'Internationale Online is the joint initiative of KASK and the museum confederation L'Internationale who are working together on a five-year programme: The Uses of Art – The Legacy of 1848 and 1989.

To mark this special occasion, Vasıf Kortun (Director Programs & Research, SALT, Istanbul/ Ankara and President of L'Internationale), Francesco Salvini (Fundación de los Comunes) and Luca Bergamo (Secretary-General, Culture Action Europe, Brussels) will discuss the relation between cultural civic institutions and democracy focusing on Charter for Europe, an open-process document proposed by the Fundación de los Comunes in February 2014. The discussion will take place at KASK (Ghent, Belgium) and will be moderated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (Managing Editor of L'Internationale Online, KASK) and Steven ten Thije (Project Leader of L'Internationale, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven).

Programme 18 September

KASK, Campus Bijloke, Louis Pasteurlaan 2, 9000 Ghent

20h: Welcome by Wim De Temmerman, Dean of KASK / School of Arts of University College Ghent

20h15: Launch of, and introduction to, L'Internationale Online by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Managing Editor L'Internationale Online, KASK

20h30–21h30 Discussion between Vasıf Kortun (Director Programs & Research, SALT, Istanbul/ Ankara and President of L'Internationale), Francesco Salvini (Fundación de los Comunes), Luca Bergamo (Secretary-General, Culture Action Europe, Brussels), moderated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (Managing Editor of L'Internationale Online, KASK) and Steven ten Thije (Project Leader of L'Internationale, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven)

The focus of the discussion will be Charter of Europe which calls for the rethinking of Europe's current cultural and political structure. The co-editors of this document (which is also available on L'Internationale Online) announce: "In the ruins of representative democracy, xenophobic chauvinisms, ethnic fundamentalisms, racisms, antifeminist and homophobic processes, new and old forms of fascism proliferate. We rise up against all this.

Charter for Europe was written in the wake of one of the first major events of The Uses of Art programme: The New Abduction of Europe. This seminar took place at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, from 27 February to 1 March 2014, and was organised in close collaboration with the Fundación de los Comunes, a non-profit foundation born out of different social movements and initiatives in Spain. The event set out to connect public debate and collective action in relation to the citizens' growing disapproval of current technocratic Europe. Charter for Europe is one of the concrete proposals that resulted from the vigorous debates and has been discussed and collectively edited online since.