Arts Of The Working Class Logo

WEAPONS OF CHOICE

What if flags did not represent a nation, but communities of neighbors?

  • Exhibition
  • Sep 09 2022 - Nov 10 2022

Kunsthalle Wienwohnpartner and Arts of the Working Class present six new flags produced for selected Gemeindebauten in Vienna as part of the Weapons of Choice project. The flags display quotes from songs that were selected by residents of the Gemeindebauten in the context of an open call and deal with work, unemployment and workers’ rights.

Since 1945, Vienna’s municipal buildings have only hoisted the national flag. The exclusion created by the idea that “a nation is a community” is countered by the presence of the expressions of the diverse inhabitants of the Gemeindebauten. Symbolically, their texts exchange nationhood for a collective consciousness of solidarity action – they create signs and reclaim a voice and a space that we are deprived of under the capitalist economy and our position in it.

The 23rd issue of the Arts of the Working Class newspaper shares the same title as the flag series and will also include all flag motifs. Hence, it builds a connection between the Gemeindebauten buildings, Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz (where the exhibition In the meantime, midday comes around will be on view from November 10) and the class struggles in the city of Vienna and beyond. The real flags will fly in the wind until the red-white-red ones take their place again for the Austrian National Day.

The flags will be shown on the façades or roofs of the following Gemeindebauten in Vienna: Karl-Marx-Hof, Fischerstiege, Reumannhof, George-Washington-Hof, Metzleinstaler Hof and Gemeindebau Im Werd.

The quotes were selected by: Benjamin Bartik, Stefan Bayreuther, Julia Haselböck, Markus Hirnsperger, Natascha Schmidhofer and Maria Schwarz

Graphic designers: Nour Shantout & Sonia Garziz, Thomas Spallek and Paul Sochacki

The Wiener Gemeindebau Choir will sing.

There will be food and drinks.

The focus of wohnpartner’s work lies on community and conflict work as well as networking in Vienna’s Gemeindebauten – with the aim of strengthening and improving housing satisfaction and the quality of life in the Gemeindebauten together with their residents.

For more info HERE.

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How Many Monologues Make a Conversation?

Publishing table along our presentation within The Curators Breakfast hosted by viennacontemporary

at Stadtpark

September 10, 10am-12pm


What does the word on the street and the word in print have in common? How can we unite the least alienated with the most vulnerable in what we do? On the 10th of September, Arts of the Working Class will partake in a publishing table during The Curators Breakfast, a networking event for local and  international curators within the frame of viennacontemporary, between 10am and 12pm at the Kursalon terrace in Stadtpark. The gathering will unfold and discuss the relationship between street newspapers, public space and artistic practice, as well as the collective ways of preserving their intersectional relation. In collaboration with Nina Prader (Lady Liberty Press / Indiecon - Independent Publishing Festival in Hamburg), a selection of independent publishing titles will be curated and presented.

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Banner:
Weapons of Choice: Markus Hirnsperger for Karl-Marx-Hof, quote by Starship from We Built this City, design by Pawel Sochacki

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