Something is happening in the gap between what we know and what we feel.
We know the planet is burning. We know the museums and theatres that shape our imagination are funded by the very industries setting it on fire. And yet, knowing has never been enough. What moves us is not data. It is experience, image, gesture, presence. The body.
The Disobedient Art School (.d.a.s.) works in that gap.
.d.a.s. is coordinated by Frida Paes Leão, co-founder of Fossil Free Culture NL, and David Limaverde of Home of Participation.
The future we want is not yet here. But it can be felt and rehearsed.
Where we come from
.d.a.s. is rooted in nearly a decade of disobedient art by Fossil Free Culture NL against fossil sponsorship of Dutch cultural institutions. Since then, the Van Gogh Museum, the Concertgebouw and NEMO have dropped their fossil fuel sponsors, and art washing has become a notion the cultural sector can no longer ignore.
We call it a school in the sense of skholē, the Greek word for time freed from labour and given back to thought, conversation and care. Here, art is not decoration for a campaign and not a tool to be used up. It shapes what becomes thinkable.
In workshops, performances and gatherings, .d.a.s. rehearses the relations the future will need: queer feminist, intergenerational, diverse, anti-racist, decolonial and ecocentric.
We do not wait for the world to change. We rehearse, now, the way we want to live.
What we do
All our activities start from the same principles: imagination as political practice, learning through doing, and rehearsal instead of certainty.
Art and activism workshops
For artists who want their practice to act in the world, and for activists who want their actions to be seen and felt. We work hands-on with performance, image, score and voice, and with the campaigning craft that makes an artistic gesture land. When time allows, participants build and try out a performance in public space. Workshops run from two hours to three full days, in English, Dutch or Portuguese, for collectives, schools and organisations of any kind. We work regularly with the Performing Public Space Master’s Programme at Fontys in Tilburg, and recently with the Just Art consortium in Groningen. Fees are on a sliding scale, so grassroots groups can take part for less.
Practising disobedience
For groups, teams and organisations that want to question how they work and who they make room for. Through playful, embodied and reflective exercises, we surface the assumptions and dominant ideologies we carry without noticing. Disobedience here is not aimed at anyone. It is a creative and connecting force: a way of making space for other ways of being, queer ones included.
Talks
For festivals, universities, cultural institutions and movements that want to think with us. We speak about what nearly a decade of disobedient art has taught us: how art can shift what an institution finds acceptable, why queer and climate justice belong to the same struggle, and what it means to rehearse the future now. Talks, panels and lectures, on their own or as the start of a workshop.
Research
Our creative research happens in the monthly Open Gatherings, where artists, activists and guests experiment together. This year the gatherings focus on building imagination through disobedient art. The research feeds a book we are building chapter by chapter. The first chapter, Compost for Wild Weeds, presents the project and its values. The second is now in the making.
Join us
Come to an Open Gathering
We usually gather on the last Friday of each month, 16:30 to 19:00, at the FFC NL studio in OT301, Overtoom 301, Amsterdam. Everyone is welcome, and it’s free to join. Send us a short email first so we know you’re coming.
Bring your practice
Artists and activists who want to work with us more closely: write and tell us what you’re doing.
Build something with us
The crises of our time are connected, and so is the work of resisting them. We want to develop collaborative projects with organisations across Europe and beyond on climate justice, gender equality, queer rights and the struggles that connect them. We are looking for partnerships in which we learn from each other and create work that neither of us could make alone. Write to us, and let’s start the conversation.
