January 13-15, 2017
HAU Theater, Berlin, Germany

New Unions is an artistic and political campaign that departs from the current political, economic, humanitarian, and environmental crisis of Europe with the aim of assembling representatives of transdemocratic movements and organizations to propose scenarios for new future unions. 

New Unions considers the crisis of Europe simultaneously as a crisis of the imagination, and as such rejects both ultranationalist parties that demand separation from the European Union and seek to return to a mythical notion of the nation-state, as well as the political-economical functionary elite that has used the EU for its austerity politics. Instead, New Unions argues for the need for third, fourth, fifth options in the form of alternative scenarios for transnational unionization.

New Unions – Act I-V took place in a landscape of black stars where five transdemocratic organizations were invited to propose alternative scenario’s – alternative “acts” – for new unions. These were Act I: Feminist Union by Baharan Raoufi (Feminist Initiative!, Sweden); Act II: Internationalist Union by Despina Koutsoumba (ANTARSYA, Greece); Act III: Stateless Union by Seher Aydar (Red Party Norway/ Solidarity with Kurdistan); Act IV: Assymetric Union by Robin McAlpine (Common Weal, Scotland), and Act V: Communalist Union by Mireia Vehí and Quim Arrufat (Popular Unity Candidacy, Catalonia). New Unions: Act I-V was moderated by Margarita Tsomou and Jonas Staal.