Negotiating a collective self - A conversation with Margarita Pita

Welcome to the Onassis AiR Conversations. My name is Myrto Katsimicha. I am a curator and cultural worker based in Athens and your host in this series of recorded encounters with the participants of Onassis AiR. Founded on the principles of learning and doing with others, Onassis AiR is an international research residency program in Athens initiated by the Onassis Foundation in 2019. They say that what happens in one place stays in that place. I cannot find a better way to describe all the things that have been happening inside the Onassis AiR house since I first entered as a participant of the Critical Practices Program in Fall 2019. The truth is, it is not easy to transmit an open-ended process of relationing, which is very personal and relevant to a specific place and moment in time. How can I then give you a glimpse into that process? Everything starts with a conversation. Throughout this series I'll be speaking with the Onassis AiR participants to shed light on their artistic practices and needs, as well as to reflect on ways of being and working together.

Today, I'm having a conversation with Margarita Pita, a freelance lawyer, mediator and social artist based in Athens. In parallel to her practice in law Margarita has worked as a creative producer for numerous participatory arts projects spanning from community arts and cultural integration to research and management. She is the co-founder of Movement Lab, a safe space for physical theater, laboratory training and movement based projects against gender based violence. Margarita is a participant of The School of Infinite Rehearsals Movement V, with a collective research focus on the notion of self-organization. In this conversation, we start from the intersection of art and law in her practice to discuss the issue of self-regulation and the role of negotiation within self-organization. Margarita, welcome to Pali-Room!

Hi, nice to meet you again Myrto!

Margarita, thanks a lot for joining me today. I'm going to start this conversation with a very simple question. You're a practicing lawyer for almost a decade now, specializing in cases of private and corporate law, and you're also actively involved in the cultural sector through your collaboration with cultural and civil society organizations. I would like to start this conversation by asking you, where do these distinct practices meet for you?

This is a very interesting question and a question that I have been exploring throughout the decade that you described. To go a little bit further back, I need to tell you that these fields were fields that I have studied and practiced from the beginning in parallel. So, this question has always been in my mind of how to bring them together. It's not a very easy venture to go for, but I do think that as time passes by and I get more involved, particularly with self-organized groups, this is something that has shown that there is a field that can be common. We always have in mind when we think about law and regulations of a very strict order of doing things. In many aspects this is actually true and this sort of informs the way that we think as lawyers. That's why there is this stereotype that lawyers have a very narrow perspective of reality, that they go by the book and there is a very specific way of thinking. However, this is also not true, especially when we are talking about Greece. Of course, legal procedures are very specific, but at the same time, there is a field for imagination, if you want, even though I know this is a bit of a controversial statement. However, since everything is sort of an improvization in this country, I would say that imagination plays a vital role even in the legal field. Now, in terms of self-organization and civil organizations, the important thing for me is to actually see the practice of some of the basic rights, the right to association and how this is practiced, not necessarily through the legal framework, but through what happens in real life. This has always been of interest to me. This is how most of the groups that I work with operate, trying to find ways of governance, trying to find ways of legal existence, but more importantly, existence in a social context and these are the things that particularly interest me as well in my research and my practice in both fields.

It's interesting how, on the one hand, you work with law as the system of rules that regulates the actions of its members and on the other hand, you also work with self-organization. What draws you to self-organization?

As I said before, I have a deep admiration for law as a premise, not necessarily the legal systems and the institutions that we have. As a premise law is something that I respect as an idea, as a notion. However, it can be quite stale if this cannot be practiced and cannot be furthered through its practice and through the messiness that comes from self-organization groups. In any sort of other environments, in corporations, in groups that are more formal, there is a tendency to formalize the context that goes around decision making processes and everything that sort of regulates the relationships between the members. When it comes to civil organization groups, exactly because of these beautifully creative messiness that comes with bringing together so many diverse people, usually for goals that are either creative -in a performing arts group or in an artistic group- or in philanthropic ventures, like in non-profits, other NGOs etc. For me the interesting thing is how all these contracts and all of these principles that people decide on are actually get to be practiced, how conflict is resolved when it arises, because it always arises, and how this is progressed and is pushing this idea of the legal language to everyday practice. There is a very broad field of freedom within the creation of different self-organized groups and for me, it's always interesting to see how this freedom is used and how this freedom is progressed and what are the different applications that lead to the goals that the groups have in mind.

I would like to go back to The School of Infinite Rehearsals and ask you what prompted you to apply for the School?

First of all, the theme itself was something that I wanted to explore in this particular framework, self-organization, mostly because my interest in any procedure that has to do with self-organization groups and these contractual relationships, is the part before, during and after these formal procedures, which is the negotiation part. For me, negotiations are the key to pretty much every relationship, whether it is a relationship between two people or five people or a group or a corporation. It's a key practice for everyone not only to understand where they are placed within a certain group or society, but it is also a tool for each member to be empowered as a personality, as a self, in order to create relationships that will last and will be continuously negotiated in the future.

I'm thinking that you are bringing a very interesting perspective in the discussion about self-organization, because when we talk about this term more broadly, one would think that a self-organized group is an unorganized group. Through your research, but also through the work that you did here as a group, it seems to me that you are exposing all these procedures that are necessary for a group to organize, even if that is a self-organized group and since we're speaking about negotiation, one of the very characteristics of a self-organized group is the way that the group makes decisions together. I wanted to ask you what kind of decision making process did you adopt and if you managed to negotiate in the end?

I'm going to be a little bit provocative with this question as I feel that it's not necessarily very accurate in the way that is put. It's not about whether I manage to do negotiations, because negotiations happens all the time. At the moment that I have a desire to do something or a need to do something and you don't share this desire we have a negotiation going on. Whether we are aware of it or not, this is a different story. Whether we actually put intentionality in it in order to find a common ground or not has to do with a lot of different things and it's a decision that we need to make, whether we make it being self-aware of it or not. In that sense, negotiations happen from day one, from "Hi, my name is Margarita, your name is Myrto, what is it that we would like to explore? How we would like to go about it?". Imagine this as a dance. In a dance there is always this idea of two people or more dancing and creating a distance, coming together, going further, but all dancing in the same sort of tune, if they want to create a piece together. Negotiation is something that happens. If I had some opportunities to introduce some of my practices I did, not in the way that I was preparing beforehand and that was also very interesting for me. In my mind, I started this research thinking that the way to create a common language and a common ground is to do a workshop to the people about negotiations and how it works and mediation, different practices and games, dilemmas, all of these things. However, this didn't seem to be something that was very relevant in the sense of the flow of how things were developing. So, I decided instead of trying to sort of interrupt this flow to just introduce some of these tools whenever it was possible. For example, one of the things that I consistently did in a game format would be to introduce small elements that I use when it comes to participatory decision making processes and in particular, this method called 'Art of Hosting' that I am also using in other contexts. I would introduce elements like a talking piece or a large question that needs to be somehow broken down in smaller ones or trying to make it personal or trying to connect these with my other practice that is more physical. It's this idea of having physical conversations that do not necessarily answer the questions that we may have at stake, but exploring what is it that we need in order to connect with one another before we get to decide or discuss anything. So, it was interesting because for me it was like a continuous workshop, a continuous lab more than a workshop, that I could and I could not introduce things.

This also reminds me of the presentation that you did at your space Movement Lab and this exercise that we did together. Perhaps you can describe it a bit better than I will. Basically we were divided into couples and we were exchanging the role of the listener and the storyteller. In the first round one person would become the storyteller and by finding a balance between the two hands the storyteller would guide the other person to a fictional trip. And then, they would exchange roles and at the end they would become storytellers and listeners at the same time. So, it's about how we establish communication with the other person that we have in front of us and that really affected me, actually.

I'm really, really happy to hear that. It's one of my favorite exercises this one and I think one of the most interesting in terms of the things that manifest without talking about it. It's one thing to talk about establishing contact with another human being and it's a different thing to actually embody this connection even for five minutes. There are a lot of practices that I love introducing in these participatory processes that I'm working with. Of course, not all contexts are open to that. If I go to a civil organization that doesn't really have any of this background, this will be something that they will be very uncomfortable with. This idea of having physical contact with people that you don't know. However, personally, I think that it's very important whenever we enter any sort of negotiation and any sort of conversation, because this is essentially what we did at Movement Lab -it was a physical conversation, and that's why I kind of insisted on setting the framework of this. We have a storyteller and we have a listener and your job, your task as a storyteller is to tell your story, but as you tell your story to be aware, if your listener is actually following you. It doesn't make any difference to the world if as a storyteller you tell a story that nobody cares about and at the same time as a listener, it doesn't make a difference, if I don't actually put myself into a position of commitment to give space to someone else's story and listen. In that sense even something as simple as touching palms and moving together in the space becomes an experience that embodies this essence of listening, of telling a story and at the same time understanding if I am a good listener, if I am a good storyteller, if the other person is a good listener, if the other person is a good storyteller. It's all these different layers and dimensions that I don't think that there is any other way to perceive them at the same time other than the body. In Movement Lab this is exactly what we are doing. It's a space that is a laboratory. It's experimental. It's not so much about performing or about showing the work to an audience. Yet, we do have our openings. More than anything it is this space where you can explore your physicality, where you can reclaim your own body, your own self, not in a self-centered way, but rather as this idea that we are complex systems and whenever we get to any sort of communication with anyone in a professional context, in a personal, in a social, or in a political one we carry this with us. The more you explore your own system and other people's system, the more sustainable these things are going to be. It's exactly the same thing with all of this idea of negotiations before you enter a contractual relationship. This is the playground, the negotiations, the physical exploration and I think we need to play more as humans and as political beings.

It's also about establishing a connection and a contact beyond language, which for me is very relevant, since language can be a form of power, especially within a group where for most people English is not their first language.

For sure. This is a way that people can connect a lot. There is a place that we can learn so much about each other and for me this particular residency was illuminating in this particular perspective and this happened through a common experience with another one of the residents. We did this workshop with hugs, which was something that in my culture is very normal, to hug people and to have this physical interaction, while in his culture hugs is something that is out of context and is not something that is practiced regularly. It was very interesting the way that we went about it and we did this small five-minute workshop to see how the hug and the experience of a hugging develops without communicating verbally. Just experiencing this physical proximity was something that blew my mind. It's something that really gave me a lot of thoughts and work to develop my own practice.

Well, thank you for sharing that. Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to receive a hug. I must have missed it, but maybe we can hug later. I wanted to bring up "The Care Manifesto" that was one of the first collective readings that you did together. I stumbled upon a quote by Judith Butler that has a lot to do with what we have been talking about, where she says that "only once we recognize our shared entanglement in conflict, along with its powerful corollary in awareness of our shared vulnerability and interdependence, we can begin to develop new caring imaginaries on a global scale." So, it's about living in difference or with difference. During these seven weeks, how did you see your individual research path merging with the collective one that you took upon as a group?

It was very interesting for me because my topic had to do about this idea of perceiving the self as a society, as a collective system that has to do with the body, but also the mind and the different thoughts, feelings, traumas, social experiences as well as the family and the cultural context, with everything that the self is created by, including all these non-human systems, like the bacteria or the microbiome, or all of these things that somehow live in the same body that I live or you live or each one of us live. In a way I wanted to find this space of negotiation with all of these before I get to relate with other collective selves. This is something that stems from my interest in psychology. I wanted to create this question about whether we as a system can negotiate with other systems having as a prerequisite that we sort of self-regulate. We sort of self-determine all of these systems that happen in our bodies before we enter into a conversation with another one. As I was thinking this, it was a very conceptual thing at the beginning and it happened during the pandemic, because viruses are particularly rich in that sort of context. But at the same time, while this was happening, I was not aware that I have an autoimmune condition. I have celiac disease, which is something that has to do exactly with this idea of the microbiome and the different sort of organizations that live in the same body. The interesting thing about the practice is that because we all gathered around the kitchen and that was something that we did a lot -cooking-, this is something that came very early into our collective research. There was no other way for me to be fed safely, which was actually a very rich gift that was given to me by the collective. This idea of collective care, as we read about it in the manifesto or as we analyze it in the conversation is something that got practiced again and again every time we had a meal. I had people coming to me and asking what would be safe to eat, if they could help in order for me to feel more safe, with these people deciding not to go to a specific restaurant because I wouldn't be able to have some food safely. So, while we were discussing this, I was in the privileged position to actually experience that and progress in this idea of accepting the care. A lot of times, especially in our line of work, we talk a lot about collective care, but we talk a lot about collective care as the carers, as the people that provide care to our groups, to individuals, or mutual-aid groups, but again, we are in a position of power and privilege. We care for other people. Sometimes this can be easier rather than receiving care ourselves. So in that sense, reading "The Care Manifesto" and understanding these differences that have to do with the biological structure of our bodies in this particular situation was something that not only expanded this idea of care for all of us, but gave a face to vulnerability, gave a face to this idea of interchanging roles of caring and being cared for and that was one of the most valuable things that I took away from from "The Care Manifesto" experience, if you want.

As a group, did you have a specific research focus? How did you work together during these seven weeks?

I think care was manifested quite early in our conversation and it's interesting because we had two main topics that all of us had as common things to explore. One of them was care and the other one was conflict. It was very interesting because they're not exactly on the opposite spectrum. In my opinion, they're actually in the same spectrum, because this idea of finding conflict and allowing it to exist and allowing it to breathe and get into the conversation or into the negotiation is one of the highest expressions of care. We usually -as people-, especially if we have managerial positions or if we are managing projects, or organizing, have the tendency to want to jump into solutions whenever a conflict arises. For me, this is something that takes away from the potential of transformation, whether this is a social change within the same group or whether it is something that has a broader impact in life or society. In that sense, the idea of allowing conflict to exist and allowing bad feelings and allowing messiness and allowing all of these things that can dilute the group was something that brought us together. We did not always have the same opinion about things, but it was a very self-aware moment whenever we made a decision, whether somebody liked it or not and whether they would make the decision to compromise or to take one for the team.

I have to add here that I also believe that you managed to explore the concept of conflict from different perspectives. As far as I remember, there was one person in the group that had a completely different understanding of conflict in a collaboration or actually, he mentioned that he had never experienced conflict before. Perhaps in Europe or in the Western world, the way that we perceive conflict is quite site-specific, I would say.

You're absolutely right on this. There are a lot of thoughts that come mostly from negotiation theories about the correlation between negotiation practices and conflict resolution tactics, as we call them, depending on the culture and the cultural context of the conflict. The theory suggests some stereotyping that, of course, is to be taken with a pinch of salt, but there might be some value into these stereotypes. They talk exactly about this idea of having individualistic cultures that tend to be more individualistic when conflict arises. According to the theory, this is more towards the U.S. model. Then you have these germanic sort of contexts that seek refuge in the rights, in things that are considered to be axioms, like regulations, laws, things that everybody sort of believes in. And then you have the more Asian context that has to do more with this idea of collaboration, that whenever a conflict arises people tend to sacrifice their personal desires and needs for the common good. There is a lot of interest in that, of course. However, now we live in a globalized world. A lot of these are very relative stereotypes. I do think that, based on the very limited experience that I had with one of the participants in the group coming from Indonesia, the perception of conflict was totally different, but also the level of tolerance was totally different. I think there are a lot of interesting things to research on that, but there is also an overarching thing about this innate human trait of creating conflict. It doesn't really matter where you come from and what is your cultural background. This is something that is there as a human thing, as a human element. Of course, the cultural context is the one that smoothens it out or not and it's interesting in developing and applying the practice of mediation or negotiation in different types of context, but there is something about conflict that is universal and this is for me the most interesting place, being a person that I enjoy conflict in the sense that I do think that it's only through the chaos and the instability and the disorder and the conflict and the violence, in many cases, that things can change. For me, it's more important to find places where conflict is OK to exist and it's OK to explore what comes out of the conflict in order for a bigger change to happen, rather than trying to position it in a cultural background where it exists or it does not exist.

In order to further explore this notion of self-organization you decided to go on a trip together in Pelion.

There were a lot of ideas and concepts about it, but not knowing the reality outside of a city this was something that we couldn't predict. It took a very long time to choose a place. I think, in the end, Pelion was just one of these places that was considered to be one of the most beautiful places in Greece, where a lot of the production comes from -like chestnuts- and also Larissa, that is a valley where a lot of food comes from and food played a vital role in our research. It turned out to be an excellent opportunity for us to spend time together and spend time in nature in a way that informed a lot of our conversations. We did a very beautiful mushroom hike. We picked up different mushrooms. We cooked them together. It was in a very beautiful spot. This idea of getting in touch with a different network -of course for us it is also a delicacy-, but this was something that opened up a conversation about the mushroom world and about this idea of the network and the networks with nature. I don't think it could have happened in any other place because what happened in Athens is that we got very much into this mechanistic approach of things. We want to see 10 initiatives. We want to talk to another 10 groups, 10 artists, we need to plan, make schedules. So in that sense, going to Pelion was like a ritual.

I think that the way that you describe it, Pelion gave you the opportunity to enact your imagination in a way.

Yes, for sure, enact our imagination, but also sort of practice this need that most of us had for a breather outside of what we ourselves had expected from this residency to be. We came in with a proposal and this proposal informed a lot of our decisions, but when we went to Pelion, it was like a ritual. We broke this flow that we thought was the proper one to follow and we went somewhere that was so overwhelming -all the stimuli that we had, the nature, the beauty, the stars. We saw one of the most beautiful skies that I have seen in my life in Pelion. All of that was a very beautiful thing. We also pushed a lot of our personal boundaries by jumping into super cold water after rain at 8 p.m. or doing a lot of things of trust and exercises that had to do exactly with this and I think this is what was the glue for us to work together longer and to create these relationships.

Well, I would like to thank you for sharing all these experiences with me today. I'm curious to know what's next for you now.

There are a lot of things that are coming after that. There are a lot of things to unpack from my personal research. Of course, the first thing that I'm going to do is go back to Movement Lab and find a way to take these practices and put them into the next project. We had a project that we were working on that had to do with vulnerability, that started during the lockdown, using theater practices mostly but also some martial arts practices. I'm definitely going back to our project, the Fight-Back Club, which has to do with gender-based violence and how we can self-protect and learn self-defense against that. There is a lot of programing that needs to happen around these conversations especially the conversation for vulnerability. Now that I have all of these ideas and the practices that came after the residency, I have my legal practice that I need to go back to and hopefully one of the practices that have started at Onassis AiR will continue to be part of the conversation in this community that has been created.

Margarita, it was a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for sharing!

Likewise, thank you so much for doing all of this and for being part of this community!

Thank you for listening. If you want to listen to more conversations, please subscribe to our channel. You can find more about the Onassis AiR residency program and each participant at www.onassis.org. This series is produced by Onassis AiR. Thanks to Nikos Kollias, the sound designer of the series, and to Nikos Lymperis for providing the original music intro theme.