Fast Forward Festival 6

The public discussion on commons and commoning practices emerged since the dawn of the 21st century as a key term in the growing global interest on solidarity and social justice against the background of rising nationalism, populism and xenophobia. As David Harvey argues, the revival of the urban commonalities especially after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, reflects the decline of state supplied public goods during the austerity years that led the population to self-organize to provide their own commons inhabiting new forms of social relations while empowering diverse migrant and feminists communities and trans/queer practices. Based on an extended archival research, archaeological finds, historical sources and fieldwork in Athens, Lesbos, Thessaloniki and Volos, the 6th edition of the Fast Forward Festival invests on the field of cultural commons as a dynamic discursive platform where new, poetic forms of togetherness and emancipation could be commonly imagined and potentially built. Artists working at the intersection of aesthetic and civic practices were commissioned to explore collaborative models in education, health, ecology, culture and economy, while critically investigating politics of exclusion, surveillance and dispossession from various perspectives and heterogeneous fields of knowledge. Hybrid performances, site- specific installations, public gatherings, urban interventions and video works, which arise from months-long collaboration with experts, solidarity networks and local communities are taking place for two weeks in Athens. What do we maintain as commons in the aftermath of crises and wars? Can we collectively imagine a common future?
—Katia Arfara