This workshop invites people with connections or interest in rural places to explore the quiet, often-unspoken forms of intimacy, solidarity, and refusal that shape post-socialist (rural) life.
Over three sessions (4 hours each), we move from theory to text to making: theoretical and social prompts drawn from Eastern European and queer thinking inform the writing exercises; we develop those texts through editing and feedback; and finally, we make a small collective publication (zine) that captures the work and methods we've tested.
No prior experience required, lunch included, donation-based or free to attend. Language: English, Romanian, basic Dutch. Please drop a message if you want to join: writing.rural.relations@gmail.com
Priority given to those who can attend all 3 sessions.
Research supported by CBK Rotterdam.
*The title CORRUPT is borrowed from Veda Popovici's essay “Solidarity in Illegality: How the Corrupt East Is Already a Queer East” which looks at corruption as a practice of care, survival, and refusal within post-socialist contexts.
SCHEDULE
Session 1: Sunday 2nd November (10.30 – 14.30) at WET, Rotterdam
Introduces 3–4 theoretical prompts (examples: post-socialist subjectivities, corruption, quiet resistance, fugitive intimacies) through short readings and conversation to open writing prompts.
Session 2: Sunday 9th November (10.30 – 14.30) — at WET, Rotterdam
Peer editing and development sessions using editorial exercises to deepen drafts.
Session 3: Friday 12th December (10.30 – 14.30) — at Kiosk Rotterdam
Hands-on making session: layout, folding, and simple binding to produce a small-run riso zine.
ABOUT THE VENUES
WET is a Rotterdam-based collective and project space for artists' moving image, founded in 2019 by Marta Hryniuk, Erika Roux, Anna Łuczak, Nick Thomas and Sophie Bates. WET is a platform for public events, with a focus on artworks which challenge existing orthodoxies and propose alternative perspectives, and supports the production of moving image works.
KIOSK Rotterdam is a bookshop, (riso) print workshop, and Multi Tool Press. The selection hosts radical/critical theory, fiction, poetry and self-publishing practices.