Winter Update Meeting 26 December - 3 January

PAF invites you to the 7th consecutive Winter Update Meeting: eight days of recreation, conversations, sharing of commons, exchange and social togetherness.

This edition operates under the device of “conviviality without content”, a big change in relation to previous editions where content came first. Instead of working towards something determined, WUM wishes to invest in what can develop out of “aimless conviction”, of particular ways of being together through an urgency that has no other reason than the necessity to continue. This is not a matter of having fun but rather to explore the boundaries of artistic, social and political production in a society whose foundation, democracy, is decaying. Doing so not through the question “what can be done?” but instead through conviviality, eating together, conversation, sharing experiences, story-telling, listening, interplay, lightness and care.

PAF further considers the importance of ending a year with a moment of reflection, evaluation, inner calm and unbounded contemplation. This years WUM wishes to function as a few days of finishing a chapter, coming to an end and a recharging of batteries.

WUM is saloon rather than theatre exercises, a good book rather than application hysteria, conversation rather than “Publikumsbeschimpfung”, ordinary rather than spectacular, together rather than yoga class, a winterly promenade rather than a dance class, somebody offering a short-story rather than a reading group. Still it is of course up to each and every participant to determine what is urgent and PAF’s facilities are there to be activated in all thinkable ways. At the end of the day WUM 2012 implies an attempt at different kinds of progressive self-organization with no smaller ambitions than to ask questions that require new words.

As usually Christian and Siri will electrify the kitchen, this year further deepening the experience of eating together. During WUM a number of studios will be rearranged into lounges and saloons in order to offer further opportunities for conversation, contemplation, reading, laughter and other forms of exchange.

WUM is also open for collective proposals and activities. Already in mid October proposals of more workshop-like character, not to mention a process that aim at a collective performance at the end of WUM, has been raised.

You can participate for as many days as you want, reservation is as easy as sending an email with or without a proposal to Jan Ritsema: janritsema@mac.com

[As food will be served during WUM, self-cooking is not possible. Apart from the price for the room, 15 euro a night, one also pays 17 euro for the food&wine, together 32 euro for a full day. A membership, valuable for one year, is obligatory (12 euro)]