AUCTION 2013
The auction of 2012 understood the auction as a tool for the destruction of structural discriminations and made its focus the necessity to fight austria racist laws and administrative regulations against those coming to study from countries outside of the european union.
We approach this auction as a necessary means of support but we don’t subscribe to the idea of charity with its depoliticising effect. Paraphrasing Galeano, we don't believe in charity. Charity is vertical, for it goes from the top to the bottom and is as well paternalistic. We believe in solidarity because it is horizontal and respects the other person.
The auction of 2012 was full time free work: it was 6 hours a day the first and last month, and 11 hours a day for the four months in between. It meant being on the phone at all times, everyday. It meant picking up works and looking for places where to store them.
It is important to ask to whom goes this symbolical political prestige? When we do not have enough money, for transport, for materials, how is it possible do this out of nothing?
The decision to engage again on the organization of this action is yet again linked with necessity and urgency. The denouncement of our situation did not lead to any changes in the structures, nor to any response that would see to approach this from an institutional point of action. The academy of fine arts approached us this year to organize the AAAAR auction during the rundgang for which they offered logistics support. Despite our doubts and criticism, seeing that this problematic continues to affect us and having in mind that the future applicants will have to go through the same process, we decided to once again work on this auction.
PRECARITY
Last year we entered the organizational process of the Artist Activist A(u)ction Against Racism not knowing much about how the working process will look like. Not knowing the massive amount of work it would require. This year therefore it was important for us to reflect on the precarity of the working conditions we had to endure, to reflect about the prestige this precarious work we are doing, and what this brings to the Academy. The printing of the catalogue and of the flyers are financed but other expenses and materials needed for the auction are not. Students are expected to ask their network of friends to work for free to then "be able to apply for money" —if they are Drittstaaten-Studierende.
THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS
Universities and the academy of fine arts is one of the places of society where these racist structures are being implemented. Now the government is (re)introducing a law that forces Non- European students to pay the double amount of the student fees that european students have to pay. There has been no official comment yet how the head of the university will deal with this new racist law, although the demands are clear: For example in January 2010, the group 'the darker side of the academy', a self organized group within the academy consisting of people that are constantly affected by these laws wrote a letter to the former head of the university, demanding to abolish the student fees for people without european passport and also demanding legal advice and support for them, supply of all the necessary information in all languages they need in order to live and study properly. There are many examples within the academy of groups and people who tried to change the situation, but unfortunately besides the website of the Academy finally being translated in its entirety into English, and the revision of the German courses offer, there was not much of a change happening. This stands in contradiction to the profile of the academy, which is presented as a place where it's production is localized in a global world that needs to be reflected upon within the studies like quoted on the website of the Academy "The research activity of the art academy aims at redefining artistic production processes in a changed, globalized society.“
Furthermore claiming also on the website the importance of being an international university “The strength of the Academy lies in its internationally renowned teaching body and in its international student body, which is made up of members from 50 different countries.”
But the discrimination of non-european people and, in this case, students, happens on many levels outside and within the academy.
Already to get to Austria with a student visa is a long, complicated and very expensive procedure that demands students to have an amount of up to 15.000 Euros on their private bank account. But even once they are inside the university they still face more discrimination. For example it is impossible to access most of the scholarships that are being offered only to european students.
Concerning the language, students that apply for the architecture department at this academy need to demonstrate that they know German on the level of B2, which in equivalent to the level of the so called Abitur/Matura. This degree of Abitur/Matura is not asked from students with european passports.
But also outside of the university they face several problems as for example getting job, even if they have a student visa.
HISTORY OF RESISTANCE IN THE ACADEMY
AAAAR is an initiative (taken by a group of migrants, artists, activists, students, workers) that can be understood as part of a history of several autonomous groups working in the academy with the aim to reflect and discuss critically on the topics of migration, racism and discrimination. This include groups like The Darker Side of the Academy, the Arbeitsgruppe Migration, the Arbeitsgruppe Anti-diskriminierung, the department of anti racist political practices of the student union, among others that originated in the context of the education protests in 2009.
WE FIGHT BACK
