Below is the latest outline of plans for the summer - with more to come. To subscribe to the Freedom Summer newsletter, email info@manifestoclub.com
19 May – Freedom of the Streets? Booze and the regulation of social life – Salon, Huddersfield – Josie Appleton will speak to the Huddersfield Salon about bans on happy hours and public drinking, and what this means for social life. Partner campaign: Manifesto Club Campaign Against Booze Bans.
3 June – Cabaret Without Borders, London - This will be a convivial evening of satirical artistic interventions, passionate political rhetoric and personal testimonies at the East London gallery, Rochelle School, celebrating free movement for all and opposition to the Home Office's new Visa controls for visiting artists and academics.
Talks and performances include: Harold Offeh (performance intervention), Susannah Hewlett (performance intervention), Mark McGowan with Jaemini Kim (performance intervention), Cyril LePetit (sound piece & photograph/poster based on a project with Asylum Seekers), Andrew Mitchelson (travels to Kurdistan-Iraq), Josie Appleton (on why free movement matters).
Partner campaign: Manifesto Club's Visiting Artists Petition. Supported by A Foundation and Artsadmin.
21 June – Sports Day Against Vetting, London – The Manifesto Club’s Campaign Against Vetting will host an informal sports day in a park in central London, for local adults, parents and children. This is a day for fun and furious competition - and also to celebrate adult volunteering and informal community sports. No CRB checks required: just bring your trainers and sports clothes. Partner Campaign: Campaign Against Vetting. Partner organisations: IoI Parents' Forum.
24 June – Debate on Booze Bans, Brighton - Brighton Manifesto Club members are challenging the city council to a debate on its booze control zones, which mean frequent confiscation of alcohol from city residents. This event will also launch a report, based on interviews with Brighton residents, showing the impact of these alcohol control rules on the life of the city.
27 June - Picnic Against Booze Bans, Brighton beach – Brighton members of the Manifesto Club will hold a picnic to protest against the city council's regulation of drinking and social life, and to speak out for Brighton as a free and fun city.
2 July - Manifesto Clubnight - Attention Please Launch. Last year the Manifesto Club Launched Attention Please, an online photo album which captured the unnecessary, absurd and patronising safety warnings in public space. We asked our members and supporters to send examples of the kinds of ludicrous signage we all encounter in our everyday lives. By turning our cameras on questionable safety warnings, we began to reveal the extent to which safety regulations affect the look and feel of public space around the world. We are delighted to now bring a selection of those contributions together in published form. Attention Please will be launched at a Club Night on 2 July. Project convenor and author Tom Mower will introduce the project and a selection of submissions. He will be joined by other speakers to reflect upon the regulation of public space, and what we can do about it.
26 July - Freedom to Move, Belfast - The Home Office recently introduced new restrictions on international artists and academics visiting the UK for talks, temporary exhibitions, concerts or artists' residencies. Visitors now have to submit to a series of arduous and expensive procedures to get their visa, and then more bureaucratic controls when they are in the UK. Continuing to raise awareness and encourage discussion around issues of artistic freedom and mobility, Belfast Exposed invites you to join artist and writer Raimi Gbadamosi as he investigates questions of freedom, mobility and the arts. The talk will be recorded and made available for download, as a first step towards making the participants of the session mobile. Participants can also bring their travel documents, and photographs taken whilst abroad.
10-13 September – Freedom Fest, Paris - Manifesto Club is a partner at the Libertarian International conference in Paris, which is hosted by Manifesto Club member and head of Libertarian International, Christian Michel.
Late September - Venice and the Republican Idea of Freedom, Venice Dr Dominic Standish will lead a discussion on the past, present and future of republican ideals.
