Architecture of AppropriationArchitecture of Appropriation

Milan-based Macao art centre facilitates art collectives that produce art and public events, activists involved in many different projects, and communities and individual passing through, as well as a large number of non-human beings such as rats, insects and mosquitoes, and even walls full of fungi and bacteria.

"We spend a lot of time talking about the self-organisation of the parties involved, but there is also a lot that happens that nobody talks about."

"It's based on a weekly open assembly, physical and online (if needed), in which we self manage the space, the artistic programme and the political agenda.

In the Macao art centre, there are art collectives producing art and programming public events, activists with various projects, communities and individual people passing through; and then there are many non-human presences like rats, bugs, mosquitos and walls with funghi and bacteria& We spend a lot of time talking about the self-organisation within these actors but there's also a lot of things going on that usually nobody talks about."

"When Milan was the centre of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Macao building was closed to the public. The lockdown was really strict. Most of us members of the assembly stayed at home for three months. The assembly went online. We had the problem of fixing an anonymous online space, able to support the participation of more than 50 people, based on open-source software. Finally we used a Jitsi application, installed on a server coded by a hacklab in the city.

During the lockdown we started Radio Virus. Creating a radio station in that situation meant providing free access to everyone and every activist in Italy, from their own apartment, giving them the possibility of broadcasting their own programme. You can find the archive and the radio here. On the other hand, the activists living close to the Macao building started a project called Brigata Ho Chi Minh, a self-organised group for mutual aid in the neighbourhood that provides food and goods to people with no money due to the coronavirus-related economic crisis."

"During the lockdown we breathed fresh air in Milan for the first time. There was no traffic and no pollution. That was nice. Some of us moved their work to home, the so-called smart working, and they started to become intoxicated by too much digital connection and too many online team calls. A few of us stayed at home without work but were covered by wages and social security. Most of us lost their jobs. Some of us got the virus and had to manage the quarantine and relations with the hospitals. The domestic space as working space, educational space for the kids, healing space and living space, in a space that was violent and stressed. You can find a beautiful report about the domestic situation in houses in Milan written by kids and young people here."

"The Brigata Ho Chi Minh mutual aid project in the neighbourhood of Macao has been and remains very powerful. Macao became a storage place for food and drugs, provided by donations from people, shops, and organisations (above all, the main partner of the project, the Emergency NGO). In the team of volunteers there are activists from Macao, university students and people living in the blocks all around us. We set up a call centre in Macao, collecting requests for food and drugs by people with no more money shut up in their apartment during lockdown. The Brigata started to take packages of goods to this list of people. After a while they knew each other, and now many other activities are running, like playtime with the kids in the courtyards, theatre and cinema and so on."

This conversation is part of a series of interviews and contributions on the concept of "domestic solidarity", or solidarity within alternative forms of housing and cohabitation. The other contributions were created in dialogue with representatives of Macao, Enterprise Community Partners Chicago, Pension Almonde and NieuwLand, among others. The series builds on the long-running Architecture of Appropriation project, which investigates, archives and represents the vulnerable, collective and often criminalised spatial practice of the squatters' movement.