Politics of Survival

This book is the result of a process of documentation of various participations and contributions developed in the framework of the course Politics of Survival, integrated within Porto City Council’s Coletivos Pláka 2018 project.

The aim of Politics of Survival was to activate and transmit knowledge, looking, in that transmission, for ways of replicating the flows and itineraries of the streets, squares, sites, and unused spaces. The city is performatic, so is knowledge. The city shelters, so does the planet. To think the political dimension of the transmission of knowledge has to imply thinking about the ways through which we position ourselves in the world today. As human beings, we are attempting to survive in every sense, aware of a humanity that sheds through the multiple corners of the world, transforming them; of a climate so unpredictable to the point of disquiet; and, as producers of thought and art, we questioned how our artistic, individual and collective practices, our research and writings could change something so vast as the entire planet. In order to pursue this questioning we summoned philosophers, artists, film-makers, architects, geographers, urban planners, activists, flanêurs, and flaneuses.

The project had workshops, round conversations, city wanderings, and video screenings searching for connecting lines that would open up solutions without closing down possibilities.