13:00 - 17:00
Start am AKA (Werner-Hilpert-Str. 22)
Kassel needs social cultures and social cultures need spaces!
Demonstration on vanishing spaces for social culture and subculture. The demonstration is in solidarity with all these vanishing spaces and focuses especially on the termination of the rental agreement for the AKA open cultural space at WH22 (check out the full statement of AKA collective below). Let’s get loud and demand for a #RechtAufKultur!
Program on Saturday 22.06.2024:
13:00 start from AKA (Werner-Hilpert-Strasse 22, Kassel)
13:00-14:00 public parade: we will take along some stuff from AKA to build a public living space at the Friedrichsplatz!
14:00-17:00 discussion, music and hangout at Friedrichsplatz (here). Demo will arrive approx. 14:00/14:30 at Friedrichsplatz.
Check out the demo route on our Insta.
Join us!
Live Music : @cumbia_casselera
DJ set : @h_edenism
(Others line up will follow)
Drinks will be available. Please bring some food to share if you are hungry 😉
Please leave flags of political party at home, thank you!
Let’s come together and celebrate the disappointment!
Organized by : @akakassel and @recht_auf_stadt_kassel
What has started in 2022 as a cooperation with documenta artists now will unfortunately come to an end: AKA has to shut down in the next weeks and will share the fate of @dasfranzulrich @perle_kassel @stellwerkkassel – to mention only a few cultural initatives which had to move out of their spaces in the last few months.
We invested hundreds of hours of our free time into AKA to provide a non-commercial open space and keep it open to everyone. We developed concepts for the future of the area, helped hundreds of people to organize their events, cleaned the toilets, collected donations to pay the rent … and of course had some fun: inspiring moments, …
But let’s be honest: beside the fun part we really had hard times at WH22: over one and a half year of negotiating about the future of AKA and the WH22 area (as part of many organisations who gathered in Bündnis WH22 by many for many) and discussing about the concept and meaning of culture with the new owner drained our energies and led to anger, pain and exhaustion within our group. To make a long story short: an open culture space like AKA won’t be part of WH22 in the future: too political, too much music, too much …? So finally to get kicked out by the new owner at least feels like a honest gesture. But it did hurt and still hurts.
Especially because AKA is one of the last spaces in the inner city of Kassel which is an open, non-commercial spaceopen to all different kind of people and events With the end of AKA not only a space is lost but also a strong community which evolved over the last two years: an open and also a safe space especially used by queer and migrant people or small initiatives which care about climate and social justie and bottum-up culture.
We will use the last weeks to celebrate the art of being many and invite everyone to join and use AKA: we will be around and open to your ideas and requests at least until end of July 2024.
We thank all of you who supported AKA in the last two years, contributed with exhibitions, concerts, screenings, talks and above all with love to build up this place and community.
We thank everyone who believes in an open space like this with all its contradictions.
We thank capitalism for challenging us once again <3
Some links related to this:
HNA article (06.03.2024) on closure of Perle
HNA article (17.05.2024) on closure of Franz Ullrich
HNA article on first demo about RechtAufKultur on 04.05.2024 (organized by @recht_auf_stadt_kassel)