AAAAR 20.01.2012 
AAAR Artists Activists Against Racism was the first auction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna that had as its goal to support migrant students that were facing deportation due to a change in the law. In 2011, a change in migration laws made it very difficult for students from third countries (countries outside the European Union) to continue their studies in Austria. Students from third countries were required to prove they had a minimum of 8,000 euros in their bank accounts two months prior to the extension of their student visa. Our project, carried out on the axis of art and activism, sought to legally trick the requirement of proving financial solvency. The aim was to realize a performative a(u)ction that would make evident the persecution of migrant bodies, including a critique of the history of the auction in slavery and the history of colonized bodies, which endure the prohibition to move across borders when holding the passports of the ex-colonies.
In this aim, we wrote emails, knocked on doors, studios, classrooms, and houses, and organized the voluntary donations of over 70 artists. We organized storage, recollection, packaging, and produced proofs of donation. We produced the podiums for 'the bureaucrats'. We produced a catalog and installed an exhibition at the Aula of the Academy of Fine Arts. We had graphic slogans and posters that were put on display on the day of the performance. We had self-made bid cards, a professional auctioneer, a photographer, a sound person, and a video person.
In our performance, we filled out immigration papers one after another, and every time an artwork got sold, we planted a stamp of approval on the papers. Eventually, the hanging documents revealed the sentence, "If law becomes violence, resistance becomes an obligation." At the end, we called for an institutional response by the Academy, and we reflected on our position as migrant-artists in the current political circumstances.
The event took place in the main auditorium of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Schillerplatz, and the collected money went to a fund to support students. It was administered by a referat at the ÖH. The success of the a(u)ction of 2012 led the academy to invite us to produce a second auction during the rundgang of 2013.
AAAR Artists Activists Against Racism was the first auction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna that had as its goal to support migrant students that were facing deportation due to a change in the law. In 2011, a change in migration laws made it very difficult for students from third countries (countries outside the European Union) to continue their studies in Austria. Students from third countries were required to prove they had a minimum of 8,000 euros in their bank accounts two months prior to the extension of their student visa. Our project, carried out on the axis of art and activism, sought to legally trick the requirement of proving financial solvency. The aim was to realize a performative a(u)ction that would make evident the persecution of migrant bodies, including a critique of the history of the auction in slavery and the history of colonized bodies, which endure the prohibition to move across borders when holding the passports of the ex-colonies.
In this aim, we wrote emails, knocked on doors, studios, classrooms, and houses, and organized the voluntary donations of over 70 artists. We organized storage, recollection, packaging, and produced proofs of donation. We produced the podiums for 'the bureaucrats'. We produced a catalog and installed an exhibition at the Aula of the Academy of Fine Arts. We had graphic slogans and posters that were put on display on the day of the performance. We had self-made bid cards, a professional auctioneer, a photographer, a sound person, and a video person.
In our performance, we filled out immigration papers one after another, and every time an artwork got sold, we planted a stamp of approval on the papers. Eventually, the hanging documents revealed the sentence, "If law becomes violence, resistance becomes an obligation." At the end, we called for an institutional response by the Academy, and we reflected on our position as migrant-artists in the current political circumstances.
The event took place in the main auditorium of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Schillerplatz, and the collected money went to a fund to support students. It was administered by a referat at the ÖH. The success of the a(u)ction of 2012 led the academy to invite us to produce a second auction during the rundgang of 2013.
AAAAR Auction 25.01.2013
'Your Comfort is My Silence' (2013), took place in the auctioneer is taken over by a sickness that makes her incapable to restrain herself. This spreads onto a group of sans papiers, and refugee and asylum seekers and lasts all night as the auctioneer sells artworks.
The Academy invited us to organize the auction a third time but the amount of overworking it involved made us decline. The 2014 auction was organized organized by professors aiming to support the refugee protest. For this purpose I gave them all the organizing files and the learnings we had made in 2012 and 2013. Since 2015 the auction is carried out by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in order to fund their Artist in Residence Program that is addressed to students from third-countries (the name the EU gives to non-EU countries).
The discussion of the need for such an action was brought by artists-activists that attended the class of postconceptual art practices in the winter semester of 2011. The project was carried out by three female students, first and second generation migrants, Imayna Caceres, Joanna Wilk, and Miriam Raggam. And in every step it was supported by several students, professors, migrants, administrative staff and upcoming and established artists with similar concerns. The organization of the performance was supported by Marissa Lobo and Verena Melgarejo Weinandt. The general intensive organization was supported by Seraina Renz, and Ekoj. Jul Tirler, Daria Kirillova, and Claudia Tomasseti picked and delivered works. Paula Pfoser, Vasilena Gankovska and Claudia Tomasetti were backstrage refilling food and drinks. Tatiana Kai-Browne, Konrad Wolf and Verena Melgarejo Weinandt registered people. Iris Borovnic and Eduard Freudmann installed the exhibition. Niki Kubaczek, Georg Oberlechener hand over and carried works.
The project was preceded by other self-organized student initiatives that ended up in institutional changes, such as The Darker Side of the Academy, which also addressed institutional issues of the art school.
'Your Comfort is My Silence' (2013), took place in the auctioneer is taken over by a sickness that makes her incapable to restrain herself. This spreads onto a group of sans papiers, and refugee and asylum seekers and lasts all night as the auctioneer sells artworks.
The Academy invited us to organize the auction a third time but the amount of overworking it involved made us decline. The 2014 auction was organized organized by professors aiming to support the refugee protest. For this purpose I gave them all the organizing files and the learnings we had made in 2012 and 2013. Since 2015 the auction is carried out by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in order to fund their Artist in Residence Program that is addressed to students from third-countries (the name the EU gives to non-EU countries).
The discussion of the need for such an action was brought by artists-activists that attended the class of postconceptual art practices in the winter semester of 2011. The project was carried out by three female students, first and second generation migrants, Imayna Caceres, Joanna Wilk, and Miriam Raggam. And in every step it was supported by several students, professors, migrants, administrative staff and upcoming and established artists with similar concerns. The organization of the performance was supported by Marissa Lobo and Verena Melgarejo Weinandt. The general intensive organization was supported by Seraina Renz, and Ekoj. Jul Tirler, Daria Kirillova, and Claudia Tomasseti picked and delivered works. Paula Pfoser, Vasilena Gankovska and Claudia Tomasetti were backstrage refilling food and drinks. Tatiana Kai-Browne, Konrad Wolf and Verena Melgarejo Weinandt registered people. Iris Borovnic and Eduard Freudmann installed the exhibition. Niki Kubaczek, Georg Oberlechener hand over and carried works.
The project was preceded by other self-organized student initiatives that ended up in institutional changes, such as The Darker Side of the Academy, which also addressed institutional issues of the art school.