Alternative Groningen Tour

✨ International Workshop on Youth Organizing – Track Research ✨ Fiona van den Bergh (she/her). Fiona van den Bergh (she/her) is a local tour guide, community organiser and performer. For her Alternative Groningen Tours, she gathers stories from archives and from the people who lived them, uncovering the city’s hidden layers of subcultural history. Her tours highlight anecdotes about squatting, activism, queer life, music communities and graffiti scenes, revealing how these movements shaped the city’s character. Fiona’s approach blends research with lived experience, creating tours that feel both personal and alive. Session: Groningen’s History of Youth Subcultures and their Social Infrastructures for Community and Activism. In this session, Fiona will bring together those themes, shedding a light on Groningen’s history of youth subcultures and their social infrastructures for community and activism.

A little moment in the archives that I want to share with you. Last week I visited the abortion clinic in Groningen, together with the other buddies of @samennaardekliniek , to meet with director Ellie and nurse Denise. Before the visit, I was working in the archives and I got curious about what's to be found about abortion in the Groninger Archieven. It was only a quick search, but I bumped into a folder from a abortion committee that started in 1968 (16 years before legalisation of abortion) in the Roman Catholic Hospital (the building where I live). Going through the documents, one name catches my eye: J.H. Geling. I realise it's a name I come across very often, it's on the door to my corridor's laundry room.

DRIE ACTIVISTISCHE GRONINGER VROUWEN Vechten tegen femicide en vrouwenhaat. Strijden voor het ontmantelen van koloniale machtstructuren en denk- en werkwijzen. En het belichten van de invloed van krakers, activisten, queers en anderen die de stad vormgeven buiten de gebaande paden. Dat is waar de activistische Groninger vrouwen Petra Brouwer (@dolleminasgroningen ) Charlotte van Braam (@czvb.art ) en Fiona van den Bergh (@alternativegroningentours ) zich met hart en ziel voor inzetten. Op zaterdag 28 maart van 14.30-16.30 uur verzorgt Museum aan de A samen met @pittiggekruid een middag met deze drie activistische Groninger vrouwen bij onze tentoonstelling 'Wie schrijft geschiedenis?' in het Groninger Museum. De toegang is gratis, wel van tevoren aanmelden via [email protected] Kijk voor meer info in link in bio 📷 1. Fiona 2. Charlotte 3. Petra @groningermuseumofficial

DRIE ACTIVISTISCHE GRONINGER VROUWEN Vechten tegen femicide en vrouwenhaat. Strijden voor het ontmantelen van koloniale machtstructuren en denk- en werkwijzen. En aandacht vragen voor ondervertegenwoordigde groepen zoals krakers en graffiti kunstenaars. Dat is waar de activistische Groninger vrouwen Petra Brouwer, Charlotte van Braam en Fiona van den Bergh zich met hart en ziel voor inzetten. Op zaterdag 28 maart van 14.30-16.30 uur verzorgt Museum aan de A samen met @pittiggekruid een middag met deze drie activistische Groninger vrouwen bij onze tentoonstelling 'Wie schrijft geschiedenis?' in het @groningermuseumofficial De toegang is gratis, wel van tevoren aanmelden via [email protected] Kijk voor meer info in link in bio #zien&doen

March is Queer History Month! Take this opportunity to learn more about Groningen's queer history, and join this 2.5 hour bike tour on Saturday March 21st. Please send an email or DM if you'd like to join. Prices are sliding scale: * tight budget: € 5 * regular price: € 10 * won't miss 5 euro's extra: € 15 And check out the rest of the Queer History Month program on the website of @queergeschiedenismaand Image: poster that was used in campaign in the mid 80s, organized by police departments of Groningen and Haren together with the COC to convince victims of gay bashing to report to the police. The police had been enforcing a discriminatory law against gay people until 1971.

Music History Tour Since Groningen will be full of music this weekend, it seemed like the right moment for a tour about some music history. Sunday January 18th - meet up at 14:45 at Harmonie (Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 26) - 1.5 hour walking tour - suggested donation €5 - €20 - feel free to join, no need to sign up in advance Foto: Experimental group KOCO at Zomermanifestatie 1979 Source: Groninger Archieven NL-GnGRA_1785_9039

Some pictures of Alternative Archives x Subjective Atlas, the last event before the finissage of 'The Right to Groningen - Circuit of Commons'. With - 1960s zine 'Scandal' and 90s zines of @bergerendevries - materials from Slagerzicht, donated by @theobutterhof - graffiti pictures and publications of @kladmuur - anti-militarist posters and themed scrapbooks of @galerieblockc - first impressions of the Subjective Atlas of Groningen in process by @stichtingartisbook - and some publications I brought from home Thanks everybody! 💜 @sign.projectspace @libiacastroolafurolafsson

FINAL WEEK! ░▒▓█ The Right to Groningen - Circuit of Commons █▓▒░ Thursday, December 18th, 12:00 - 18:00 Alternative Archives x Subjective Atlas of Groningen Are you curious about subcultures from Groningen’s past? You are invited to come and peek into different alternative archives of Groningen! Visitors are invited to browse, dig, and discover stories tucked away in these unconventional collections. Experience the joy of rummaging through these old zines, pictures, and posters. There will be a copy machine, so you can make collages of your favourite fragments! Saturday, December 20th, 16:00 Finissage and christmas toast! 20 December is the last day of the exhibition The Right to Groningen – Circuit of Commons & Three other Community Scale Projects.  Sign, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson and Fiona van den Bergh would like to use the occasion to invite you all to a Christmas toast! We would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have visited the show and taken part in the program and also specially give big thanks to all of you who participated through contributing with your unmissable proposals, experience, knowledge and work in making the program and all this common process the journey it has been! We are looking forward to the continuation of the project next year and the new synergies and proposals in becoming in dialogue and collaboration with the people and initiatives we have met through this process.

░▒▓█ The Right to Groningen - Circuit of Commons █▓▒░ Alternative Archives x Subjective Atlas of Groningen December 18th, 12:00 - 18:00 Are you curious about subcultures from Groningen’s past? You are invited to come and peek into different alternative archives of Groningen! There will be: - Provo zines called ‘Scandal’ from the 1960s - Political posters from different movements - Zines from the 80s and 90s Loads of pictures of graffiti, made by punks, hiphopheads and Z-side hooligans. All of these from Groningen! Visitors are invited to browse, dig, and discover stories tucked away in these unconventional collections. Experience the joy of rummaging through these old zines, pictures, and posters. There will be a copy machine, so you can make collages of your favourite fragments! Alongside the alternative archives, we also present an alternative atlas, the Subjective Atlas of Groningen, a project still in the making. In this atlas, the province of Groningen is shown by its inhabitants, the narrative about the place told by diverse groups of people. Come and explore the early versions of this evolving atlas! 12:00 - 17:00: Open archives 17:00 - 18:00: Presentations by ArtisBook, Kladmuur, Berger en de Vries, Blok C and Alternative Groningen Tour Hosted by The Right to Groningen – Circuit of Commons & three other community-scale projects.’ an exhibition and project by artists Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson in collaboration with SIGN projectspace & Fiona van den Bergh, organizer, performer, and city guide. @kladmuur @bergerendevries @galerieblockc

░▒▓█ The Right to Groningen - Circuit of Commons █▓▒░ Skillshare workshop with Dajana Heremic and Marina Sulima December 13th, 14:00 - 17:00 Marina Sulima @_marinasulima and Dajana Heremic @dajanaheremic - who are connected in their biocentric practice of ancient crafts as doorways to inhabitable futures - are giving a Skillshare. Through locally harvested clay, plant fibers and wool they are going to be creating a vessel for fermentation with salt. Exploring working together with humans and other animals, plants and bacteria. Walk in 13.30. Marina is maker of things, aspiring farmer, ocassionally obssessed with bright blue fungicides or ash glazes for ceramics. Dajana is visual artist and teacher, animist hedgerider and ancestral skillshare organiser. In the context of ‘The Right to Groningen – Circuit of Commons & three other community-scale projects” by Libia Castro & Olafur Olafsson in collaboration with SIGN projectspace & Fiona van den Bergh, organizer, performer, and city guide.

░▒▓█ The Right to Groningen - Circuit of Commons █▓▒░ Artist talks with Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson December 12th, 13:00 until 17:00. On Friday, December 12th, the artists Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson will give two artist talks, at 13:00 and 15:00 at SIGN on their socio-politically engaged art practice and the exhibition 'The Right to Groningen – Circuit of Commons & three other community-scale projects', and the still ongoing community scale polyphonic works that it it brings together and the artists have created in collaboration with other artists, activists and active citizens in Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands. The exhibition brings together the projects 'In Search of Magic – A Proposal for A New Constitution for The Republic of Iceland' that Libia and Ólafur created in Iceland in collaboration with The Magic Team* (2017 – ongoing), 'The Rehabilitation of La Casa Invisible – Chapter 1' (2021 – ongoing), together with the community of La Casa Invisible in Málaga, south of Spain and curator and researcher Gemma Medina Estupiñan, 'The Right to Eindhoven – Circuit of Commons' and the currently in process 'The Right to Groningen – Circuit of Commons', that the artists are creating in collaboration with SIGN projectspace and Fiona van den Bergh, organizer, performer, and city guide. The artists will be present from 12:00. Coffee, tea and cake are provided.

Yesterday I visited Hans Alderkamp to take a look at his archive material. Hans has photos, posters, news paper clippings, official letters and minutes of meetings from different political collectives from 1970s - 2010s. All of this will be going to the @groningerarchieven . Very valuable is his documentation of different decolonial / migrant / and anti-racist organisations. And nice to see some familiar faces here and there ;)