𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐭: 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐯𝐬𝐧ä𝐬, 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐦 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐨
𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟑𝟎-𝟑𝟏
Who has the right to host? Who is permitted to claim space, to bring others together, to hold complexity, grief, joy, and struggle in shared form? Who is allowed to dwell, to belong? And under what conditions?
At a time of escalating violence, genocide, and starvation in Gaza, and amid deepening global asymmetries of care, grief, and dispossession, we return to the concept of hosting as a political practice. Hosting is not merely a cultural or personal gesture of welcoming, but a claim to hold space, to make visible, to claim agency, and to insist on the right to presence and collective reflection. To host is to interrupt erasure, to assert forms of belonging that challenge dominant narratives of exclusion, and to reimagine space as shared, contested, and negotiated.
This two-day public program takes place within the rural landscape of Stavsnäs in the Stockholm Archipelago, but it does not remain there. The rural is approached as a lens—a situated space from which to examine broader structures of exclusion and belonging. In Scandinavia, such landscapes are often framed as spaces of purity and retreat, where leisure and care seem like natural rights. Yet they also expose the social, racial, and economic boundaries that govern access to land, rest, time, and the right to host.
This gathering explores the right to host as a framework for rethinking collective responsibility, cultural infrastructure, and the politics of care. Through conversations, situated reflections, and collective inquiry, we will explore how self-care is shaped by neoliberal and racialized contexts; how infrastructures of commoning might redistribute resources and enable new forms of access; and how hosting can function as a radical political tool, not simply a gesture of generosity. Together, we will reflect on how these concepts are made available—or withheld—across different communities and positionalities.
𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦
𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝟑𝟎 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭
12:00 – 12:45 Brunch
12:45 – 13:00 Gathering & Opening
13:00 – 14:00 Sandi Hilal — Self-Determination as Collective Practice
14:15 – 15:15 Aziza Harmel & Reyhaneh Mirjahani — The Uninvited Host
15:15 – 16:00 Coffee Break
16:00 – 17:00 Cassie Thornton & Ida Bencke — TBC
17:00 – 18:00 Judith Wielander & Matteo Lucchetti — Visible: Art as Policies for Care (2010—ongoing) — Book Launch & Discussion
18:00 – 20:00 Dinner & Cooking Around the Fire
𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝟑𝟏 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭
12:30 – 18:00 Cooking & Conversation Around the Fire
𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Storskogsvägen 19, 139 71 Stavsnäs
Access via bus from Slussen — 5 min walk from the bus stop
No registration is needed and it’s a free event. Food is provided, just bring your drink if you wish for.
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The program is co-curated by DAAR, Hosting Lands (Dea Antonsen, Ida Bencke and Aziza Harmel), and Reyhaneh Mirjahani. It is supported by Nordisk Kulturfond, Bikubenfonden and the research project Oikos – Climate and Care in the 21st century, University of Copenhagen.
The event takes place at The Summer House in Stavsnäs in the Stockholm Archipelago, an initiative by DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research) whose story begins far from the forested islands of Sweden. It is shaped by years of living and working in Palestine and by a project in the northern Swedish town of Boden, commissioned by the Swedish Public Art Agency, which transformed a room in a refugee housing facility into Al Madhafah—a living room where refugees could reclaim the right to host rather than remain eternal guests. When that space was abruptly taken back by authorities, DAAR responded by transforming a site of leisure and exclusion, a private summer house, into a shared space of radical hospitality. The Summer House is not simply a building but an ongoing practice of commoning the private, reclaiming the act of hosting as a form of self-determination
For the 25th Biennale of Sydney, DAAR has been collaborating with Think+DO Tank Foundation on HAṢĪRA, a series of gatherings in Sydney.
