# Interview with curator Hamburger Community & Anarchief, Ying (Wan Ing Que)

[unedited selections]


[13:00] Simon: In the public events we organized, we tried to use the space in a different way than in Roodkapje's regular physical and mental architecture - such as using spaces that were normally not used in public programming.

[13:30] Katinka: And also letting collectives themselves decide what they wanted to do with the space. 

[13:03] Simon: At first, we were really focused on the Hamburger Community, but quite early on, we decided to open that up and see the entire Roodkapje, also with its larger body of volunteers and affiliates and who else is involved - it's quite a big crowd... To see this whole community as one form of collective, so-to-speak, to see what is going on there, and how can you tap into what's already happening or reinforce things that are already happening...

[14:31] Katinka: That's a bit more about our part of the story..

[15:00] Ying: For me, it was great to enter a space that was so oriented[/focused] on collective practice, because I really think it is something that we also need to do. Although I have my reservations on this trend. Everything that in the art world becomes a trend, I'm like, hmmm... - a little bit suspicious. But I feel it's necessary that we move from the kind of individualist, sole, author, artist towards community and collective practice. [15:30] So I appreciate that trend, and I see different art spaces taking that on. For me, it was one of the main reasons that I felt "Oh, I can fit in here". 

Maybe one of those reservations from me to enter into a residency in which the artists were _made_ into a collective is kind of the first thing... [16:00] I told them already in the first meeting: "look, I know that you all come from collective practice, I don't think this is how a collective is formed. But you're curated, you're selected by a jury. So this is an unnatural collective". Because in my experience, that's not how a collective forms. But you all come in with a very specific mindset where you all understand that you're going to work together very closely, and you gonna bring in your collective practices. You have a certain experience that will, maybe, make it easier to build a collective program. [16:20]


[18:00] Ying: I feel that Roodkapje as an organization comes from this very DIY (do-it-yourself), or DIT (do-it-together), attitude. It's quite underground, comes from punk and queer scenes, and has this collectivity quite woven into its space. Plus: Now everybody wants to make a community, or build communities, but I feel that community happens in life. [You live, and then you can't escape the community, you know.] And I feel that Roodkapje as a space has gathered many communities. So I am not sure whether it was necessary to bring the collectivity inside [Roodkapje]. [...] [19:00] So I am not sure what was the goal. What needed to happen, what needed to change in the space? If it was moving the Hamburger Communities from individual work to collective practice, great - and you suceeded, and thank you, it's very nice to work like that. But in terms of the organization itself, well, I wonder. It is already very community-based. It's not an anarchist space.There is a lot of self-organization, but we have a director, we have these existing hierarchies, there are the volunteers and then a floor manager. [19:36] And there's the question who is paid. But I am not sure whether this was the intention, whether they wanted to break certain hierarchies, whether they wanted to bring in more self-organization from the space itself.

[24:39] Katinka: In its core, it's very very different from institutional practice. And what is this difference exactly? How can we pinpoint this, and how can we also help each other finding common ground? I am not sure what we did for the organization, but I think that we posed some questions, looking for the kind of frictions between collective and institutional practice, and how this could also be played out within Roodkapje as an organization. 

[25:40] Ying: What you say about the violence between institutional time versus community time, and how to find a common ground in that - that is a huge question. [...] I also think that it's important to understand the levels of institutions. I have a lot of these discussions especially with the young artists who work in the Burgertrut and the bar etc., because they say "yeah, the institution, and this and that...!" ...but Roodkapje - sure it's an institution. But if you compare it so, say, a museum or a white cube or highbrow... I barely think that [applies to Roodkapje]. In Roodkapje's culture, there's an art program, but I cannot compare it to a highbrow art institution. The level of institutional pressure of course is high, because we are under capitalism. This is an institutional problem. Roodkapje's problem is the funding cycle.

[27:00] Katinka: That's exactly what came out of it [/our work]. That Roodkapje itself is trapped in production logic.  

[31:20] Simon: The pressure of producing in Roodkapje became a pressure for the community as well. That meant that after events, including the community events, reflection processes didn't happen. [summary of Simon's point.]

[36:00] Ying: I really believe that this is not Roodkapje's problem. I think it's an institutional problem because of the economy in which we live. It's a huge problem, so I don't think you can really resolve that. But the question of what is the common ground,  because that's what it's really about...


Katinka: What connects us actually, even with the same jobs within different institutions. 

Ying: Exactly. Why do these volunteers come and want to spend their time in that space? What brings you together? What binds you? There is a common ground that brings people there. And maybe people do not really want to have those soup sessions, for example! Because, with the new volunteer coordinator, we noted that these soup sessions are not very well visited by the volunteers. So what is it that volunteers want to do together? So I think this question of common ground is really important, and the question of reflection is a general problem of capitalism. I always try to slow the f... down. Isn't that an international slogan? And that's really difficult. But I think there are loopholes. [...]  It is not just the funding cycles that traps us, because we also have a lot of super-passionate, committed people. There is a lack of space in the city, to organize things, so the demand on Roodkapje from outside as a space is also really big. And they're great people, they want to do amazing things. So you want to help them all, and then you realize: oh wait, we actually don't have the capacity, but now I planned, like, five events per weerk. Then people grind themselves, and not even because there is a pressure from the funding, but you really wanna people do amazing things. That's also something that we realized in the past few months. Now I put up a sticker in the office that says: "If you feel no, say no" (laughs).

[43:11] Katinka: A question also is what is Roodkapje's responsibility as a cultural organization.

[44:45] Ying: I do think that cultural and arts institutions and organizations have a big responsibility in facilitating activism. On that note, I also want to say that activism is such broad concept and container of many things. What I am specifically interested in, in regards to activism, is the self-organization part, in the sense of: how are we gonna build independent infrastructures that are alternative, that are independent from state and market? Because, if there comes the revolution, and we don't have the opportunity,  then we'll just go back to what it was, with a different head. So that's one part of activism I'm interested in, building the alternative, experimenting with the alternative. And then there's the other part which is organizing. Organizing, I think, has a more collective purpose than activism. Activism can be any person that goes with a sign to a protest and then posts it on Instagram, is an activist, you know. I'm more interested in the organizing part, where there is a clear politicizing of people, clear bringing together people for political struggle, doing political education, and activating people to become part of the fight, for whatever it is - whether it's for housing, or for solidarity. So in these two parts, I think that Roodkapje has an interesting role to play. Because I feel that within art and culture, there is an imagination that's necessary for finding what these alternatives will be, what this experiments would look like. And not just be told that in the future, there will be this and that, but actually doing it. If you showed with all those best practices: these are already things that are happening here, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. But how do we learn from each other through this knowledge exchange and also implement it infrastructurally? I think that the commons is an important approach in that, especially when it comes to economics, that there are alternative economies. And I think that an art institution can be a commons. And that's also something that I see in Roodkapje, that comes more from, I guess, a squatting history where you share the space. If you know someone in Roodkapje, you should be able to organize whatever you want.

[61:45] Ying: I came to Rotterdam to link up political organizations with the cultural sector and have them interact, meaning to bring more social practice and have the social practice just be part of the space. 

[62:30] Katinka: What do you exactly mean by social practice?

[63:00] Ying: Social practice for me ... I was always a community organizer, and bring different communities together, and use the art space for them to use the space and have access, basically. And to connect with the artists and their work, have the campaigns align, the program align, and do research together. A kitchen, communal cooking, is one example. The big idea was to build the shadow economy, apart from the state, for care, housing, food, and art, as common pools of resources. And then bring collectives together to see how you do that. Ideally, they would all connect, and you would have a little shadow economy in the city, but that was a long-term plan. [...]

[1:04:30] Social practice, that is actually people working together who are maybe not necessarily artists, or where what they produce is not necessarily an artwork. One example is: what kind of relationships do we, as an institution, build? And how do you build a sustainable relationship with certain parts of the movement.

[1:15:00] Simon: In one of our previous conversations, I remember that you brought up the term "toxic collectivity"...

Ying: Really?!?

Simon: Yes, it was related to your background in a lot of organizing. I think the conversation was about how collectivity in arts practices is romanticized, which you saw happening for example at documenta fifteen. That what is the hidden side of collectivity is not really being addressed...

Katinka: I think you reacted to someone else who had coined this terms and was a member of the POST collective, where two members, one from Lybia and the one coming from Egypt were mentioning this term to talk about the collectivist societies where they come from. In their interpretation of the term, a collective can also mean that you're not free, and that the whole group is deciding what you cannot do. This was described as "toxic" by them. And then, I think you reacted on this, saying something about your own experience with toxic collectivity...

[1:17:30] Ying: One thing that I really appreciated from that conversation, which I continue to use, now, to check myself, is that they said that one needs to become aware of where is the fertile ground. Which is such an an easy way, and it's so obvious, but when they said it, it just stayed with me: If you do want to bloom, if you do want to flourish, you need to find fertile ground. If you are not feeling energized, if you are not feeling appreciated, if you are feeling let down and disappointed, then the ground is toxic, and you need to leave. And that was so nice! That totally stayed with me, like: YES, check your grounds, it's real...

I came from a burnout. Not necessarily just from collective practice, but a lot of things. But what I learned from that is that romantization of collective practice is really important to address. 

[1:20:00] A lot of people who want to become collective forget that there is a host of structures and strategies and methods. Coming from anarchist organizing myself, our trainings were filled with things like: how do you facilitate a meeting? It goes really to super-basic things, like: how do you build a good agenda? What is the division of roles? How do you rotate? How do you build commitment? When do you think of consensus process, how do you make sure everyone is heard? How do you make decisions? There is a host of methods and structures that are super-basic which I feel that art skipped. When I was teaching in an art academy, the Dutch Art Institute, I also noticed it there, that it was skipped, this basic method of how do you run a meeting, you know? And I feel that, without that, because I saw it so many times, that you start a project, and there's a great conversation going on, but it's not recorded, and there's no note taking, and there's no process afterwards, like "hey, what did we talk about", and then you come together and you have the same conversation. You know what I mean?

Simon: Yes...

Ying: That's one part that I think is something missing from collective practice in art, a lot. And then the other part concerns toxic collectivity. Where I don't know whether it comes from art - but it's just my experience from being in community organizing and being in political and social movements -, that there's a reproduction of what has been put upon us, that we're also reproducing capitalism in ourselves. You have internalized and unlearn certain things. Plus the question of, if you are a community organizer, and what you grow is collective practice, and you bring communities together: what will happen when you leave? This is always a huge thing, also for artists who do community work. If the artist is not there, does the practice continue? 

I think that is something that became very prominent for me, that I was carrying way too much.  I started dropping balls, and then the people I was working with, couldn't carry. And then I had a huge disappointment, like: a my god, my collective just crashed, how is that possible? I put my heart and soul into it... There was one practice that did move on, that did survive. I left, and it's still going. So I conclude from there: what happened in that space compared to the other spaces.... I think that's a major question for organized and for artists: to check on your role. Is it just you who is holding the people together? Is it just because of you that people want to do things? And what is your mistake in not being able to make it sustainable? So I basically came from that kind of toxic collectivity that I had too high expectations, maybe, from my community members or members of my collective. So that's more personal, actually... And that can become very toxic, because people who are hurt... And the fight is rough, there's a lot of pressure, so you get hurt by that.

[1:25:20] Simon: Is there something that you are now doing differently?

[1:26:00] Ying: It's only recently that I feel that I can return. I really took a break, a year and a half, from organizing and movement-based work. I feel that in Roodkapje, I feel that I can do now what I was doing before in the sense of commoning this space: We can do this here, we can bring certain groups who can facilitate a certain program, we can common. And that's slowly happening now. But I will do it with care for my personal needs. It sounds really lame, but understanding the self-care in a whole other way... Of course, everybody talks about self-care. I also understood it before, but I understood it with more experience now, in the sense of: okay, if you don't take care of yourself, your community will also crash. You first want to take of yourself so that it can be sustainable. And you need to build a structure where people can fall out and come back.