Rosa's House of Culture

Emergency Project Room is an initiative of the international collective Chto Delat. It is located in Berlin Mitte. Its program is based on the model of the House of Culture with an open structure of study circles fostering different artistic practices. Emergency Project Room is a space based on internationalism, kinship, and mutual support, opened to people with different national and cultural backgrounds, genders, and experiences. Emergency Project Room activities are focused on the different decolonial struggles in post-communist spaces and the potentialities of alter (“non-western” type) modernization.

This space was founded in January 2022 in a situation where all members of the collective Chto Delat were forced to leave Russia after the opening of a criminal case related to the anti-war activism of its members and were granted asylum in Germany.

Friends of Chto Delat e.V. provided a small space in Berlin for the work, which began as a gathering place for new communities of cultural workers in exile with the goal of establishing relations with various local cultural processes. Emergency Project Room develops the practices of organizing cultural and social centers that Chto Delat collective has been doing for the past 12 years, both in an international context and locally—in St. Petersburg, where it founded the legendary Rosa Culture House in 2015.

Since its inception a number of events have been held—Mad Tea Party series of performative discussions (12 iterations), The School of Emergencies workshops, dinners, film screenings, birthdays and one memorial. (See Facebook group Chto Delat Emergency Project Room: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1644026146025744)

In the current situation of growing uncertainty, Chto Delat e.V. wants to continue to develop different cultural practices that allow their participants and the public to survive in our dramatic times and create meanings that can be demanded now and in the future.

The Emergency Project Room is open to various friendly initiatives and its program is currently based around 3 circles/workshops: an absurd study – performative discussions “Mad Tea Party”; the “MAKE SPIEL”, an emergency gaming workshop for the development of board games dedicated to various crisis situations; and a circle of body performative practices “Unplanting the seeds of Hatred.”

Participation in the circles is open to various participants on an open-call basis. Each circle interacts with the others in the process of its development and presents its work to the general public in the format of performances, public exhibitions (The signals’ window), publications, and discussions.

Sign up for the Emergency gaming workshop, run by Anton Polsky aka MAKE (the first meeting is on September 17 with approximate intensity every two weeks.

see the program and open call here and register form

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hreaM99HbM_7FQIccdiBdJ2qkO5PLtPvdtwKXkTRsGM/edit?usp=sharing

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Enrollment in the performative practices circle “Unplanting the seeds of Hatred” mediator Vera Shchelkina (first meeting is September 23 with approximate intensity every two weeks

see the program and open call here and register form

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i57UtnYBvj1NaHFPOUM3PYhd-C9X3RklxX0N4MG8giI/edit?usp=sharing

The series of Mad Tea Parties continues with special announcement for each event and date – the first autumn ceremony will happen on 1^st of October with Master of Ceremony Veronika Zaripova

and please follow us on FB group, mailing list and Instagram

need a link here with detailed explanation and how to register

need a link here with detailed explanation and how to register – like you did

It has been a year since DK ROSE was forced to cease its work. Since the escalation of the war, the ROSA HOUSE OF CULTURE and the Engaged Art Workshops suspended all their public programs – our space became a place where we could all experience together the failure of our usual reality, prepare anti-war agitation, just gather, cook food, and talk openly about what was happening. Looking back, back then, in March-April 2022, we had not yet given up hope that the situation could change, that the people would rise, that “Putin” would disappear, that the war would end, that the sanctions would be lifted, that the trauma would heal. By the end of May, the mood was different, more desperate, and we decided it was worth it to leave a city increasingly steeped in militarism. We decided to establish a country commune-as it is now clear, looking from today’s perspective, it may have been our riskiest move in the history of our work.

photos from events at the DK ROSA in May 2022 and during relocation

We were sure that there was no point in staying in the city at that moment, and the experiment with forms of common living promised some new opportunities for psychological and physical survival, as well as opportunities to continue the practices of resistance, reflection, and education. We were lucky – the police did not catch us at the anti-war film festival, the preparations for the actions, or simply at the meetings of the dozens of activists whom the place helped to survive that desperate summer.

We publish the commune’s zine (see below) in English in a situation where all its participants are safe, but nevertheless we do not reveal the real names hidden in the publication under different nicknames.

Is it possible to continue DK ROSA in a new situation, when its participants find themselves in very different places and when they have very different tasks in life? We were lucky enough to get a space in Berlin, which we called Chto Delat Emergency Project Room thanks to the support of our friends – it is still very new and we are trying to make it a new community space – a gathering place, a discussion place, a residence, a place where we hold our Mad Tea Parties, dedicated to different emergency situations and the absurdity of the reality that we are facing. It can’t become a full-fledged social center-but that seems to be another challenge. If the School of Engaged Art, transformed into the School of Emergencies can continue to exist trans-locally, the House of Culture requires another concrete spatial assembly of bodies and interactions. In the meantime, it is important for us to keep our community alive and hope that at some not-so-distant point in time we can come together in that very city, and it will make new sense.

(text by Dmitry Vilensky)

Art-Commune Zine publication – open to download 

It has been a year since DK ROSE was forced to cease its work. Since the escalation of the war, the ROSA HOUSE OF CULTURE and the Engaged Art Workshops suspended all their public programs – our space became a place where we could all experience together the failure of our usual reality, prepare anti-war agitation, just gather, cook food, and talk openly about what was happening. Looking back, back then, in March-April 2022, we had not yet given up hope that the situation could change, that the people would rise, that “Putin” would disappear, that the war would end, that the sanctions would be lifted, that the trauma would heal. By the end of May, the mood was different, more desperate, and we decided it was worth it to leave a city increasingly steeped in militarism. We decided to establish a country commune-as it is now clear, looking from today’s perspective, it may have been our riskiest move in the history of our work.

photos from recent events at the DK ROSA in May 2022

We were sure that there was no point in staying in the city at that moment, and the experiment with forms of common living promised some new opportunities for psychological and physical survival, as well as opportunities to continue the practices of resistance, reflection, and education. We were lucky – the police did not catch us at the anti-war film festival, the preparations for the actions, or simply at the meetings of the dozens of activists whom the place helped to survive that desperate summer.

We publish the commune’s zine (see below) in English in a situation where all its participants are safe, but nevertheless we do not reveal the real names hidden in the publication under different nicknames.
Is it possible to continue DK ROSA in a new situation, when its participants find themselves in very different places and when they have very different tasks in life? We were lucky enough to get a space in Berlin, which we called Chto Delat Emergency Project Room thanks to the support of our friends – it is still very new and we are trying to make it a new community space – a gathering place, a discussion place, a residence, a place where we hold our Mad Tea Parties, dedicated to different emergency situations and the absurdity of the reality that we are facing. It can’t become a full-fledged social center-but that seems to be another challenge. If the School of Engaged Art, transformed into the School of Emergencies can continue to exist trans-locally, the House of Culture requires another concrete spatial assembly of bodies and interactions. In the meantime, it is important for us to keep our community alive and hope that at some not-so-distant point in time we can come together in that very city, and it will make new sense.

(text by Dmitry Vilensky)