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The Theatre as a Common Good: artists, activists and artivists on stage

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Interface: a journal for and about social movements Peer-reviewed article
Volume 10 (1-2): 70 - 91 (2018) Maddanu, Theater as a Common Good

The theater as a common good:

artists, activists and artivists on stage
Simone Maddanu

Abstract
Based on interviews and ethnographic observation, this article analyzes the
experience of political activists and artists during and after the occupation of
the Teatro Valle, in Rome, an historical national theater. The occupiers
experimented with new forms of management of the theater schedule and
theater laboratory. At first their action focused on the job insecurity of artists
and lack of funding for culture. Therefore, they switched into a commons-
based principle incorporating a conceptualization of culture in the form of an
“immaterial common good”. Thus struggling throughout the “commons”
becomes a vehicle to radically criticize neoliberalism and private market, and
to affirm new citizen expectations against political institutions. The paper
aims to problematize both the artist and political activist approach. During the
occupation of the theater, their practice led to the effective medley of their
practices, interests and orientations: political stance and artistic experiments
are combined in the occupied theater. After their eviction from the theater,
according to our ethnographic observations during the weekly plenary
assembly of the group, the political praxis appears to prevail upon the artistic
side of the group. Without a physical place where to experiment the alternative
proposal, the former occupiers still conveys the utopia of a Theatre as a
symbol of an alternative institution through their plays.

Keywords: activist-artivist, alternative institution, collective action,

immaterial common goods, subjectivity, theater, urban commons.

Introduction
This article retraces the experiences of the artists and activists that occupied the
Valle Theater, the oldest theater in Rome (1700), from 2011 to 2014. At the time
of the occupation (June 2011), the theater was inactive1. Protesters decided to
occupy the theater complaining about the job insecurity of artists, the lack of
cultural policies in the city, and the general crisis of political institutions (Sen
2009, 78–86). The movement they created around the occupation put together
the political and creative meaning, around the concepts of the commons,
participation, direct democracy, and the struggle against political institutions
and neoliberalism system.

1As the cultural institution in charge of the artistic scheduling was previously dismissed by the
government, at the end of the scheduled season the theater was inactive. According to the
occupiers, the theater was potentially targeted by private buyers.

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In a first phase, characterized by a “cooperative artistic practice”, occupiers and

sympathizers experiment with a form of shared theater among other citizens
and spectators. By practicing creativity and leading an open political debate
inside the occupied theater, these social actors attempt to offer some
collaborative practices on how to take care of a common place and rethink
cultural institution as a common good. By claiming the theater as a common
good, they aim to create an auto-legitimized institution, alternative to the
existing cultural/political institution as well as neoliberalism. I explored how
the Occupy Valle Theater created a collective action cognizant of the common
goods – as they theorize it – that aims at re-founding a cultural institution and
proposing an alternative market and economy for the artists.
Included in our interviews with former-occupiers, we raised some research
questions: How do their practices inside the theater construct a “struggle for the
commons”? Who is legitimized to manage a national theater as a common
good? Which kind of possibilities and limits emerge from their experience?
The second phase, after they left the theater, is characterized by a sharper
distinction between the political and the artistic goals: without a physical place
to experiment with a political and artistic project in opposition to the neoliberal
system and institutions’ inefficiency, the collective group of the Occupied Teatro
Valle switches from a “space of hope” (Harvey 2012, 109-112; Novy and Colomb
2013) to a more “utopic space” (Foucault, 1986; Bloch 1996). In this phase the
difference between the two approaches, the artistic and the political one, is more
pronounced: the artivists2 are no more able to broadcast a political message, to
modify or be modified by the spectators and citizens, as wished in the Augusto
Boal’s Legislative Theater (Boal 1998; Babbage 2004, 30); the political
activists, on the contrary, continue to express themselves by using their proper
language and rhetoric, although losing the ability to disseminate messages to a
larger audience of citizens: The group is stuck in an in-group vision, which is
deprived of its practical deeds in a specific space.
The research3 is based on a participant observation during the six months
(September 2014-February 2015) after activists were compelled to leave the
theater (August 2014). I participated in their weekly meetings, observing how
they perform and take the floor, what they learnt from their past experience in
the theater, and how they plan to continue their actions outside. In addition, I
led 10 in-depth individual interviews with some members that regularly

2 This neologism tries to blend the artist and the political activist spheres. In Italy, the political-
artistic experience of Macao in Milan, which currently makes use of the term artivist (see for
instance Chiara Valli, 2015), is an example of the political/cultural encounter between the art
workers and the antagonistic left-wing activists.
3 In this article I present part of the survey survey "Sustainable practices of everyday life in the
context of the crisis: toward the integration of work, consumption and participation", funded by
MIUR-PRIN 2010-2011 and coordinated by Laura Bovone (Università Cattolica di Milano), in
collaboration with the Universities of Milano (coord. Luisa Leonini), Bologna (coord. Roberta
Paltrinieri), Trieste (coord. Giorgio Osti), Molise (coord. Guido Gili), Roma "La Sapienza"
(coord. Antimo Farro), Napoli Federico II (coord. Antonella Spanò).

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participated to the plenary assembly. The network of Teatro Valle occupiers led
to other collective actions in the city: I participated in other meetings,
workshops, and conferences which reflected a broader mobilization frame in
Rome4. Since I was included in the group’s mailing list, I collected the
communication exchanges between activists concerning proposals, shared
documents, debates, analysis, and, above all, the weekly meetings’ reports. The
research focused on the manner they intervened, also in the mailing list,
noticing how they take the floor, the use of an artistic or rather political as well
as technical language.

Theoretical aspects
Grassroots democracy has been a political crucial theme for more than 50 years.
Particularly, within the term “autogestion” or “grassroots control” – as
suggested by Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden (Brenner and Elden 2009, 16-19) in
translating Henri Lefebvre’s essays – in the 1970s several occupation
experiences have shown how to put into practice an autonomous form of self-
management5. Despite the central role of “work”, which was still the crucial
issue during the “workerism” period (operaismo) (Balestrini and Moroni 1997),
other cultural claims and forms of assertion6 have emerged by the squatting
self-management in the following decades (Ibba 1995), putting the social
autonomy at the core of new urban issues (Mayer 2009; 1993; Martinez 2013).
Unlike the Marxist so-called whitering away of the State and the
implementation of “autogestion” (Lefebvre 1975, 5-22), in which grassroots
control of occupied spaces is often related to the conceptualization of an
alternative institution, the Valle Theater case study shows an attempt to switch
into a self-legitimate common good-based management. By occupying and
managing the national theater, activists and artists aim at “hybridizing” and
“grafting” – as they suggest – the cultural and political institutions. Their critic
against neoliberalism and cultural institutions, which they consider as a political
patronage, finds a practical articulation through the concept of common good.
Furthermore, the political and artistic practices of the occupied Valle Theater
are part of a new wave of urban common claims. They reflect, as David Harvey
pointed out, the “profound impacts of the recent […] privatizations, enclosures,
spatial controls, policing, and surveillance upon the qualities of urban life in
general” and new forms of sociability as “new commons” (Harvey 2012, 67).

4 Particularly, the research came across other occupying groups in Rome, like Blocchi Precari
Metropolitani or Action. In order to avoid a straight-up fight against political institutions and
police, these collective actions chose a strategic balance of power and a community-based
legitimation. Squats include dismissing public buildings. The occupation uses a large number of
activists and homeless migrants to prevent and discourage low enforcement intervention.
5 “Autogestion” can be translated as workers’ self-management.
6 Generally interpreted as “new social movements”: see Alain Touraine Critique of Modernity
(1995).

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An important part of the literature on social movement studies suggests an

interpretation of collective actions in terms of mobilization of resources.
According to this analysis, the agency is characterized by an institutional
pressure, in which social actors take advantage of some “opportunities” and
“facilities” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Charles Tilly 2001). Furthermore, collective
actions are considered as playmakers in contentious politics (Tarrow 2012) as
networks (Diani 2014), shaping, and penetrating or conditioning political
parties’ agenda. However, this article aims at demonstrating how the Teatro
Valle movement is a matter of subjective affirmation (Touraine 1995) and
recognition (Frazer 2000), including personal ethics (Touraine 2015; 2007) and
the idea of social justice. Social actors take part in the collective action as
individuals, showing a “subjectivization7 of collective action” (Farro and
Lustiger-Tahler 2014, 15-34). This agency does not aim at integrating the
system but seeking alternatives and changes, asserting his own sense of justice,
social rights and ethics (Touraine 2007, 81-87).

Everybody at theater
After 68 years, by a decree of law in May 2010 the Italian Theater Institution,
E.T.I. (Ente Teatrale Italiano)8, was abolished. Historical national theaters like
Teatro Valle in Rome belong, by now, to the Italian Ministry of Cultural
Heritage. Officially, in May 2011 the theater activities run out. In a general
perception of crises of public policies in the city and in the country, the
uncertain future of the theater becomes a symbol of the national and local
institutions’ decline. A group of artists, some of them with a political
background as squatters or left-group,9 some without any political experience,
and others again related to the theme of art and show business gathered in the
theater. At the half of June 2011 they occupy the Foyer and the Eighteenth-
century theater, located in the center of Rome, in the vicinity of the Senate.
Initially, this action means to denounce the “intermittent arts workers”
situation, also called the Fifth Estate (Allegri and Ciccarelli 2013). The
movement consensus assembles part of the local civil society, well-known
actors, and intellectuals. From different orientations, social and cultural
backgrounds, individuals and groups converge and take part in the change of
the embryonic occupation project. Starting a dialogic assembly process around

7The concept of subjectivity is referred to Alain Touraine “sociology of action”, in which the
social actor defines himself by opposing his sense of justice and identity against domination,
expressing himself in a reflexive manner as a subject able to produce changes and to affirm
orientations, social codes, and values in an autonomous manner: see Touraine, Critique of
Modernity (1995).
8The ETI was born in 1942 as a public cultural institution related to the Ministry of Culture, no
profit, whose work and positive role was recognized by the artists that occupied the theater.
9 They identify themselves as “antagonists”, activists of Italian Social Centers, and in some cases
libertarian communists. In all cases they see themselves as radical left. See Antonio Famiglietti,
“Radicalismo, cultura, politica e violenza”, in Italia alterglobal. Movimento,culture e spazi di
vita di altre globalizzazioni, A. L. Farro ed., (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2006), 33–76.

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the notion of “common good”, a large support from citizens and artists backs the
original occupiers’ group. According to our interlocutors, around 500 people
take part in the first meetings. Political debates are combined with artistic
contents: dramaturgical experimentations are nourished by the audience, which
participates in the meetings. Activists, artists and audience alternate endless
meetings with theatrical performances.10
The occupiers create artistic projects that collect the spectators’ approval and, in
a certain manner, legitimate their political and cultural agency. They activate
new forms of access that promote unknown artists and non-conventional
theatrical projects. As it has been observed in other occupied theaters (Satta and
Scandurra 2014), at first they consider the occupation as a symbolic form of
protest. Then, their action aims to bring in other citizens and broaden the
political spectrum. A young theater director and actor, artistically and politically
active during the occupation, says:

Concerning the theater, we were trying to do a revolution, or at least we slammed

the theatrical system, the official system […] because we wanted to… The
theatrical system is jaded, you can’t play, there are no productions, there is no
spot. The institutional theaters are under lobbies’ control and aren’t linked with
locals: so nothing new in the industry. We claimed for a different management of
the theatrical institution, because the Teatro Valle is a f***ing symbol, it has
always been a historical theater, well managed by the E.T.I. So we struck the
symbol, we stayed into the symbol and we gave again a signification to it.
[Alberto, 38 years old]

By making the most of a broaden collaboration with different artists and

competencies, the Occupy Teatro Valle leads several artistic projects: Crisi (tr.=
crises) is a laboratory of writing attended by dramaturges and amateurs in
which people can collaborate towards a synergic script. The outcome is
interpreted by the actors and finally performed in front of the spectators.
Rabbia (tr.= rage) is another project of theatrical work called “ecological
circuit”, a sort of regenerating process, based on an open participation and co-
working to handle all the steps of a show (training, production, planning,
distribution). Other training projects, as Nave Scuola (tr.= training ship) or
Questo non è un Corso (tr.= this is not a course), try to combine the playful, the
creative moment, and the practice11. The Occupied Teatro Valle implements
some forms of “sustainability” for the artists and a different economic model:

10In order to avoid cacophony and redundancy due to multiple speeches and codes of language,
the assembly decides to establish the “right to speech” after being preset to three meetings.
According to our interlocutors, this rule aims at facilitating the progress of an already started
debate, avoiding repetition and bringing the assembly language to a following point. According
to another interview, it is just “preferable to abstain” until the second meeting.
11For more details see the Teatro Valle Occupato web site http://www.teatrovalleoccupato.it/
(accessed 12 December 2014).

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A minimum granted income to all the people that worked in: a percentage for the
author; a percentage was for a sort of welfare to cover the plays that didn’t collect
enough money. In addition, if a show had more [profits], the half part of it goes to
the [acting] company. Being artists in the occupied theater, this point came out
during the meetings: how to invite artists and treat them in a different way than
other theaters do? [Silvana, 40 years old, theater actress and activist].

By experimenting new artistic models and connections to the spectators and

citizens, as well as relationships with artists and theater companies, the
occupiers aim at finding new alternatives to the current system. They
implement, on practical, their political point of view of equity and social justice
that comes out from the assemblies: concerning the economic treatment, the
working relations, and the show business industry. They question the SIAE
(Italian Society of Authors and Publishers)12 monopoly, so they propose to pay
directly the 10% to the authors and register them in the PATAMU 13 platform, in
order to protect possible unreleased works. Nevertheless, the theorized
alternative welfare in the Occupied Valle Theater, as observed in other political
and counter-cultural occupations (Membretti 2007; Membretti and Muddu
2013), cannot solve the major problem of the intermittent arts workers.14 Job
insecurity and the logics of neoliberal economy remain inasmuch the Valle
Theater cannot create permanent economies or a stable welfare. Our
interlocutors do not comment this point as a failure but consider it as an
evidence of their situation, as long as neoliberalism will run political institutions
(Langeard 2013; Corsani 2012).

The regeneration of culture as a common good

Supported by some international awards that exalted the artistic and social role
of the theater occupation experience15, the movement is aware of being
politically important, so that it tries to be legitimated as an alternative
institution. Inside the theater the movement produces not only artistic
performances but also a strengthen network of different social actors. As a
result, it creates the condition for a political space that questions the new
possible civic engagement practices in the city.

12 Italian copyright collecting agency

13PATAMU is a copyright protect platform that offers free basic services and is based on
donations.
14 See for the Italian case Alberta Giorgi (2013, 110–35).
In March 2014 the Valle Theater is awarded by the Princess Margriet Award of the European
15

Cultural Foundation (ECF) in Brussels.

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At the beginning, it [the movement] didn’t mean to stay in the theater for 3
years…But very soon we and the citizens engaged in the movement were totally
persuaded to keep the theater alive. So we took ‘the Commons’ as a reference, in
order to transform the place and the space, and give it back to the city. […] We
occupied the Valle Theater in the aftermath of the victorious referendum about
the water, which the motto was ‘water common good’. So, more than an
ideological discourse, theoretical, there was a discourse around the practices.
Therefore, our idea was to transform this important space into the pivotal point
of the city, beyond the logic of political partition and the non-transparent
institutional model – a joint manager that is also a politician…and all things are
hierarchical. And then, quite immediately, we wanted to create a horizontal
structure, committed and democratic. [Flavio, 40 years old, editor and film
maker, activist]

In addition to the antagonist left, many components of the left-wing activists

related to associations, and third sector believed in the potential of the Valle
Theater experience: among them, intellectuals, famous artists, politicians and
legal experts. For instance, some of those that had taken part in the public
debate on the national Referendum about the water16, supporting publically the
idea of the Valle Theater as a common good, conceptualize this new civic
participation as a cultural and political change (Mattei, 2011; Rodotà, 2012).
The theme of the common goods seems to take the cue from the article
published by the biologist Hardin in the journal Science. According to Hardin
(1968), natural resources that are not regulated by the state or by the private
property are doomed to be extinguished. Hardin says “Ruin is the destination
toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that
believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to
all” (Hardin 1968, 1244). Hardin’s thought ignores the chance to manage a
common good in a sustainable and collective way. He rather focuses on
utilitarian and individualistic practices that take advantage of laissez-faire to
selfishly grab all free common resources. Following his way of reasoning, the
private property system “or something formally like it” (Ibidem, 1245)
represents the solution to the risk of common resources depletion. Surely, this
idea of the commons is overturned after the Elinor Ostrom’s rebuttals (Ostrom,
1990, 1-5). Ostrom inaugurates an international debate in interconnected fields
like juridical, politic science, and economy (Hess and Ostrom 2006; Mattei
2011, XXI-XII; Napoli 2014, 2011-33). In particular, Elinor Ostrom argues that
neither the state nor privatization solved the problem of sustainable natural
resources management of the planet (Ostrom 1990, 13-4).
The concept of the commons has recently been articulated with new political
and ecological practices (Weston and Bollier 2013), relating and making sense
of some collective actions and occupied spaces. From a more traditional analysis

16The national Referendum that, in fact, repeals the law about the privatization of the water, in
June, 11th and 12th.

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– in juridical terms – of the collective use of lands and natural resources,17 the
debate includes a wider range of immaterial applications based on new
demands for new rights (Rodotà 2012). If the first formulation of common good
needs an eligible “referred community” for managing natural resources
(Cacciari, Passeri, and Carestiato 2012), the current concept of the commons
includes the urban spaces (Garnett 2012) and is sometimes interpreted as
transnational (Mattei 2011), and revolutionary (Dardot and Laval 2014). In
other cases in Rome, we can observe that the civic engagement of citizens aims
at taking care of the commons in terms of subsidiarity (Arena Cotturri 2010;
Moro 2013), in order to strengthen the weak local political institutions, as has
been observed in the case of a public school (Kirkland 1982; Farro Maddanu
2015).
Concerning the experience of the Occupied Teatro Valle, the concept of common
good is used in a radical political way (Hardt and Negri 2009; Mattei 2011;
Negri 2012; Harvey 2012;), in opposition to the subsidiary practice. In this
sense, the autonomous management of the theater means to be alternative to
the national and local institutions, and the neoliberal system. This position
wants to emphasize the breakup from a collaborative idea of civic engagement
that attempts, on the contrary, to support the institutions instead of acting in a
re-foundational way, which is the case of the theater’s occupiers.
Culture is a form of commons, Harvey would say (Harvey 2012, 89-90), that is
constantly subjected to the attempt of appropriation by the capital for its
uniqueness. Then, the “exploitation of creativity” (ibidem 110) experienced by
“cultural producers” is at stake. By constructing in a cooperative manner an
alternative project to the market system, in the field of show business and the
arts, the artists and activists of the Teatro Valle movement aim to reaffirm their
wills to determine their social life, even and especially in a context of crisis of
the political institutions’ role (Dubet 2002; Batra 2007; Touraine 2013;
Touraine 2010), and city policies (Mayer 1994).
According to the group of ex-occupiers, citizens in Rome perceive the political
institutions as decadent, which appear to be inadequate to face the demand of
democracy and access into the representative system. The organization set up
during the occupation – called Fondazione Teatro Valle Bene Commune,
(Foundation Valle Theater Common good), FTVBC18, which counts 5600
members – is created from the will to start a new institution based on direct
participation and the citizens’ responsibility. According to our interlocutors, the
new legitimacy for managing the commons has to be cognizant of the cultural
and ethical challenge that this kind of participation means:

17 For the Italian case see Angela Cacciarru (2013, 145-69); and Pietro Nervi (2009).
18During the occupation and management of the theater (artistic plan and business) the
collective group creates the Foundation with a specific charter that explain goals and meanings
of this movement http://www.teatrovalleoccupato.it/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/STATUTO-
FONDAZIONE-TEATRO-VALLE-BENE-COMUNE.pdf (accessed 5 February 2015).

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I remember once during the members’ assembly [TVBC], one member came to
see me and argued about something, maybe a licit complaint…but she started
very badly…She said: ‘we are the association, we gave a lot of money; we could set
an individual association but we decided to get a collective association, in order to
give more money […] and that means that we count as one instead of twenty’, I
don’t remember how many they were…In conclusion, she was talking about
money, about how much she gave. And then she said: ‘we sent an email to
propose an initiative and nobody answered’. So my answer was ‘maybe you don’t
understand what to become a member of Valle Theater means. When you give
your sum you don’t buy a right. This money means that you are taking on
responsibility of the common good. Giving the money is not enough to pretend
something back, because this is the classical merchant model: I pay I pretend, no?
No, it is not like this’. The commons, you don’t pay and pretend. First of all you
give: your time, your energy, your work. [Valeria, 44 years old, employed in
communication marketing, activist]

The movement tries to overpass the old institution, replace it, and create
another one by auto-legitimation or through a legal process. Nevertheless, it
cannot resist to the come back into the scene of the legitimate (political)
institution: after the police cleared-up the theater in August 2014, the
experimental experience of the movement stopped, even if the group of ex-
occupiers still elaborates projects and “imaginary institutions”. According to the
majority of the people that took part in the meetings after the end of the
occupation, the goal is still to become a new institution, alternative to the
“Rome Theaters” (TdR) institution. Ex-occupiers still aim to manage the theater
avoiding the administrative and bureaucratic structure, and replacing it with a
direct participated method that “speaks other languages” (fieldwork’s notes):
They auto-legitimate themselves as an effective institution. At the same time,
they collaborate with the local institutions in order to “infiltrate” them and be
considered as an essential counterpart. Even without the physical place of the
theater, the Foundation (FTVBC) considers to keep its potential as a
reproducible model. In the early months of 2015, the TVBC attempts to have an
agreement with the cultural institution TdR and with the Rome’s Department of
Culture. With this agreement, the activists aim at managing the theater’s Foyer
activities and supervise the artistic scheduling for the next season, which is
expected once the restauration work in the theater has ended19.
The issue about who has the legitimacy to manage the theater remains: if a
common good needs a local community in charge, who is legitimated to manage
the Valle Theater?

Artists and activists: the languages of a collective action

During the participant observation in the weekly plenary session of the
movement, I collected notes and audio-records concerning the in-group
19Occupiers accepted to leave the theater in order to let authorities (Municipality and TdR) run
restauration works and secure the facility. The works are expected to be finished by 2016.

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communication, strategies, speeches and other performances of the members.

Generally, a moderator (rarely the same) introduces the schedule of the day,
continuing from the previous meeting conclusions. Therefore the session report,
which is written up by one or more persons and given back before the meeting
through the mailing-list, is crucial. E-mails and social networks are useful for
organizing events: They become, during some phases of the movement, an
arena to debate and exchange advises, in which it is possible to detect different
styles of communication. The excessive consideration of the google-group –
called La Comune20 – is criticized by those that think that “we do practices with
our bodies, not with the mailing-list” (fieldwork notes, plenary assembly,
February 9, 2015) and refuse the process of the reports. Nevertheless, by using
this channel, members implement their collective identity and the narration
about the movement: They add details and personal points of view concerning
their engagement and subjectivity21. Furthermore, without a physical place to
constantly exchange opinions, advice and proposals, internet let them share
theoretical thoughts concerning juridical aspects, economics or art 22. Among the
members I encountered, there are high professional profiles, scholars, and
academics or legal experts, sometimes used to media communication or political
institutions. Furthermore, they are aware that performing art through their
activism becomes an excellent media (Walz 2005, 71-74) to broadcast their
political and cultural proposal.
According to our observations, the decisional and deliberative process occurs in
the public open space of the weekly plenary assembly (generally attended by 30-
50 people). The debate’s trend goes towards a consensual point, in order to
“keep traces of all ideas, avoiding divisions” and to “put a limit to power
relationship” (Luciano, 50 years old, television writer, and activist). After three
invalid meetings without having reached a consensus, they eventually can recur
to a final vote. For these reasons, the timing – who and when a person speaks, at
the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the assembly – or the redundancy
of a subject appear to be essentials to guide the members’ consensus. After the
first speeches that recall the previous meeting – by way of the report – members
start to criticize or agree with some specific debated points. We can observe one
or two main orientations (even opposed) backed up by some recognized leaders
that are more skilled at driving consensus. Nevertheless, diversification of
profiles guarantees an open debate: Even if we noticed alliances and affinities
between members, I was not able to detect organized currents inside the group.

20 Reminding of La Commune of Paris.

21The concept of subjectivity is referred to Alain Touraine “sociology of action”, in which the
social actor defines himself by opposing his sense of justice and identity against domination,
expressing himself in a reflexive manner as a subject able to produce changes and to affirm
orientations, social codes and values in an autonomous manner (Touraine, 1995).
22For instance Titanpad allow members to collaborate in an interactive manner, share and draw
up simultaneously common documents.

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These dynamics are not so different from other squatting experiences in Italy,
like Centri Sociali23: Some Valle Theater occupiers come from these same
political radical actions. Experiencing multiple memberships in the social
centers or movements like Action24, these social actors reproduce a political
rhetoric also based on cultural and counter-cultural contents (Rebughini 2000,
Famiglietti and Rebughini 2008; Membretti 2007).
The plenary assembly, especially after the end of the occupation – therefore out
of the theater – represents a crucial moment to affirm a collective subjectivity.
According to the concept of “community of practice” – in which “community”
has to be considered as a shared and mutual experience of membership
(Wenger 2007, 73) – debating inside the group is a way to reinforce a shared
identity as an “implicit” and “explicit” experience: the first one concerns the
perception of being part of a group; the second is related “to do” something as
well as “to say”, sharing knowledge and learning (Ibidem 48). Members build
some shared meanings by a language related to the practices they experiment
inside the group (Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder 2002, 54-55). By the time,
out of the theater, even if we can observe performances and particular
personalities, the space of engagement is now limited to the circle of saying.
The political rhetoric prevails on the plenary assemblies, due to experienced
political activists’ ability to create consensus. However, the weekly meetings still
represent, at least during the debates, an extension of the shared experience
between activists, artists and artivists. An actor that joined the movement in the
time of the theater’s occupation tells me:

In the assembly I bring my artistic part, rather than a political speech. I bring
some artistic terms, I mean…I don’t perform a show, but I learn how to
communicate with the audience: these studies converge in the assembly. My goal
is to make ‘common images’ in the assembly. I am from an enthusiasm for James
Hillman’s work: according to him, imagining is very important. Then I brought
my knowledge of these studies during the assemblies…or, better, I brought my
thought concerning these studies…so, ‘to imagine together’, in order to share a
common language with the others. Otherwise assemblies are monopolized by
those that master ‘the discourse’, ‘the word’. So if the debate is too specific,
technical, for example speaking about normative questions about work, people
that don’t handle this language won’t understand. People can be seduced by the
style [of speaking], but maybe won’t be aware of that. [Felice, 38 years old].

Observing plenary assemblies, I noticed intensely but fluid speeches. Members

are used to understanding each other’s languages and perspectives. The
interventions do not define always an orientation, a point. Sometimes they seem
to express a reflexive moment, more personal. They talk about themselves
around an issue, not just about the issue. They rarely speak in a definitive

23 See Moroni, Farina, and Tripodi (1995).

24 Occupying and managing buildings, this Movement claims for the “right to the house”.

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manner, but always targeting a consensual process. The point, the main line is
the report’s outcome. Debates are open. Different forms of communication can
be part of the general debate, being sarcastic, paradoxical, and absurd
interventions. Even maintaining a sector-based analysis, technical languages,
like legal language or politic science concepts can be submitted to all and
questioned. In general, the language is shared by all members, maybe improved
throughout the course of their several meetings: some concepts like “practices of
management”, “experimentation”, “subjectivity”, “commons”, “participation”
and “engagement at theater” are taken for granted by all the participants. This
language though, appears to be inadequate when the FTVBC has to deal with the
local political institutions (Bailey and Marcucci 2013) and TdR in order to find
an agreement for managing the theater. The “formal” institution is perceived as
“linguistically cold” and impenetrable to members’ deed and claims. Some
members – whom delegate to find an agreement with local authorities – noticed
in astonishment: “when we talk about our practices, they [politicians and
institutional representatives] snort […] They don’t pay attention…we are talking
about how to manage with an alternative model, but they just want to know
which kind of artistic schedule we propose”25. According to the members, after
three years spent experimenting with an alternative model for the theater, the
Teatro Valle’s experience is legitimated to establish a privileged relationship
with the political institutions of the city. However, institutions like TdR do not
seem to take into consideration the political claims and the wish to “embody a
new institution” – as FTVBC wishes – but only the artistic project, the brand
and the network of the Occupied Valle Theater.
Six months after the occupiers left the theater, the meetings still represent a
critical space to express own experiences during the occupation. They are not
just a political and strategic arena. Personal interventions recall some topic
moments of the occupation in a cathartic manner, as a tale and a unique life
experience. Thereafter, by leaving the theater, former occupiers experienced a
trauma, due to the end of a political and professional practice. The shared
language inside the group becomes crystallized. The further the meetings go in
time, the rarer is the possibility to “return to the theater”. From the outside,
without the place, they do not feel recognized. Former occupiers question
themselves about “who we are” without the place (Valle Theater), even
concerning the name: “why should we call ourselves Fondazione Teatro Valle
Bene Comune [FTVBC] if we are not in the Valle Theater anymore?” (fieldwork
notes, 9 February 2015). Since the foundation FTVBC exists only on paper, it
does not achieve the movement’s purposes: without a physical space to
implement the member’s activities or concretize their artistic and political
projects, the unity of the group shatters.

25 Fieldwork notes: plenary assembly of 13 October 2014 and 12 January 2015.

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Utopias without place: artists, activists or artivists?

Encouraged by the popular success of the idea of the common goods, the case of
Valle Theater represents an effort to embody a new cultural institution by auto-
legitimating the theater occupation. The FTVBC considers itself legitimate as an
alternative to the “declining cultural institution”, which is, according to the
members, a political institution removed from the citizens’ and artists’ needs.
The FTBC tries to institutionalize what Harvey calls a “space of hope” (Harvey,
2012; Novy and Colomb 2013, 1835). The heterotopias concept of Michel
Foucault describes the “other places” as at the same time linked and elsewhere
to the society (Foucault 1986, 22-27), in which it is possible to experience a
different temporal fracture from real time (as in the graveyards, in the asylums
etc.), and from “social time” (Tabboni 1991). These places can be considered as
illusory spaces in which a utopia is setup on the edge of society but related to it.
Then, heterotopia can also be a space where it is possible to imagine the “other”,
the “elsewhere” and the dream (Foucault 1986; Bloch 1996, 74-81).
As has been observed in other occupations or squats like the Social Centers
(Toscano2011, 234-8; Martinez 2013, 878-84; Pruijt 2013), by occupying the
theater new social relations are created, economies, and socialization practices
in opposition to the market, neoliberalism, and global financial system. But
these “happy islands” can retreat into their own dimension, into a self-
referential and closed identity (Owens 2009; Martinez 2013). Taking inspiration
from Foucault’s concept, a space remains a heterotopia if it is not able to
communicate with other spaces of social life and if social life does not integrate
with it. The utopia stays suspended if it is not projected in a real place in which
to transform it (Bloch, 1996, 79-103). The Valle Theater, as mission, tries to go
beyond the logic of Social Centers or other occupied spaces, being receptive to
the citizen participation and letting penetrated by other subjects, other ideas, in
a more horizontal manner. One of the most important differences, also
compared to other occupations led by artivists in Italy (Valli 2015), is the fact
that the Valle Theater – a historical theater, architectural heritage, symbol of
the theatrical institution – takes advantage of a broad movement cognizant of
the commons.
According to Pruijt (2013) we can distinguish two different types of occupation:
a “deprivation based squatting” (Pruijt 2013, 23-4) in which occupying is a way
to face the housing crisis in the city, especially for migrants or disadvantaged
people; and an “entrepreneurial squatting” (Ibidem 31-2), based on a counter-
cultural perspective – a politically-oriented practice that aims at producing
alternative social relations and artistic performances. Metropoliz in Rome, 26 for

26This occupied space – a former factory far downtown – is home to many immigrant families,
including Roma community, and also to the Contemporary Museum Museo dell’Altro e
dell’Altrove (MAAM): See Francesca Broccia, “Metropoliz. Strategie dell'abitare in un’ex
fabbrica a Roma” (master‘s thesis, Sapienza University of Rome, 2012). In October 2014
Metropoliz hosted Self Made Urbanism Rome (SMUR), a workshop about self-organizing and
self-producing the city. SMUR is an International project that gathers architects, urbanists,
academics, artists and political activists. See S.M.U.R. – Self-Made Urbanism Rome, Roma,

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example, is a combination of both types of squats. It is another novel form of

“self-made city” including contemporary arts and performances with the
cohabitation of a self-organized multiethnic community. The Occupied Valle
Theater is not a squat: It remains a symbolic place to struggle against a
cultural/political institution and in this sense it is related to the idea of
temporary “urban commons” (Harvey 2012, 72-3). The effort to rebuild an
institution – as if they could personify the new institution – distinguishes the
Valle case from other similar artivists’ experiences in Germany (Novy and
Colomb 2013), which take part in the neighborhood regeneration of the city by
becoming third sector companies or creating partnerships with national and
local institutions (Mayer 2009, 265–272; Holm and Kuhn 2010).
Attempting a possible artistic production that combines art and politic, looks
alike the Augusto Boal political theater experience in Brazil and the wills of the
“Theater of the Oppressed” (Boal 1979), in which the artistic performance
means to turn spectators into actors, and then subjects. But outside the theater
that enabled these kind of cooperative practices, what model has been left?
The Valle Theater experience has strengthened the network with other
occupation movements, linked as well with the struggle for the common goods.
Talking about the occupation experience, members use a self-congratulatory
verbiage, like a political redundancy in order to underscore their practices as an
exceptional model. Political strategies become more and more important than
the artistic projects, so that a distinction emerges between the two scopes: the
artistic side looks for other contexts of creative expression. As for the political
side, without a physical space like the theater, activists and artivists lose their
social practice that characterized the management of the theater. Basically,
members are no more able to replicate the specific “situated experiences”
(Wenger 2007, 14–5, 288) that contributed to the excellence of the Occupied
Teatro Valle. Artists continue to express their subjectivity in other contexts
(personal artistic projects), but the collective meanings of the group remain
within the political rhetoric. The Valle Theater represented, for many, a space to
combine an artistic as well as a political subjectivity. According to our
interlocutors, the activists, artists and artivists – each one with different
recognizable modalities – found a balanced common point:

I think that the best thing we did in the Valle was the coexistence of these two
parts [artistic and political], otherwise we stuck in this dichotomy: the selfish
artist that cares only about his business, shutting himself in his world, just
looking for a particular inspiration; in the other hand, at the contrary, a deep
collectivism that seems like you cannot be as an individual, because you have to
be as a collective body…and you cannot take a decision alone because you almost
have to ask the group permission, even for a coffee with your fellows…you
know…like two extremes. I think that the Valle [Theater’s] mission has always
been to find a common point: sometimes it works, sometimes not […] If there is a

città autoprodotta. Ricerca urbana e linguaggi artistici, C. Cellamare, ed. (Roma:

Manifestolibri, 2014).

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respect for each sphere, so you can cross the spheres [Silvana, 40 years old,
actress and activist].

According to the debates in the assemblies, one side of the group aims at
carrying out the practices and the model of management of the theater in other
places, keeping the combination between art and politics27. They want to keep
the project alive and traveling. According to Owen Smith, since the sixties some
groups of artists, like Fluxus, proposed a creative experience that continues to
question a social engagement as well as an artistic practice (Smith 2005, 118).
Smith says “Fluxus is a group of individuals who constitute an entity, or maybe
better yet, a community, called Fluxus. This community is simultaneously the
product of its constitutive members but ultimately is more than any one
individual or individuals” (Ibidem 134). This artistic movement is conceived as a
network able to produce a model based on new social practices by participating
and sharing “a cognitive space and a communal structure” (Ivi). This artistic
work expresses a political sense. As for other forms of expression, in the visual
arts as well as in the performances, the power of the art has been conceptualized
as a form of transformation of the existing (Zepke 2005). According to this
interpretation, art is able to investigate social issues and make them intelligible
(Reed 2005) through alternative networks to the market and broadcasting
political, and social meanings (Raunig and Ray 2009; Raunig 2007). Among the
forms of critic of capitalism, Boltansky and Chiapello individuate the “social”
and the “artistic” (Boltansky and Chiapello 2011, 87–91, cited in Novy and
Colomb 2013, 1831). If the first one refuses individualism and seeks solutions to
solve social inequalities, even pursuing radical methods, this critic does not
claim for the dissolution of the industrial manufacturing, technology and other
activities that make the wealth of a country. Therefore, this form of critic does
not neutralize the opportunity of capitalism. On the contrary, the artistic critic
“even if it shares the individualism of modernity” (Boltansky and Chiapello
2011, 91) aims at criticizing the values and foundations of capitalism. The
relation between art and politics, stricto sensu, overpasses the scope of this
article. What we can offer as hypothesis is the fact that in the lack of material
practices in a physical space (the Valle Theater), the different spheres, which
were previously combined during the collective management experimentation
and cooperation, now diverge. According to Giorgio, the ontological difference
between artists and non-artists is, in fact, due to the nature and mission of the
political institutions and the effects of the social system:

I think that, potentially, human being has a creative power, so there is an artistic
side, each one in a different way. Unfortunately, our unaware life makes us
resigned to not to be… […]. In my view, some experiences and social relationships
lead people to bring out an unexpected artistic/creative side of everyone. But
that’s because of our relationships! Because of the manner of living, how it is

27The experience of the Volxtheater Favoriten, the nomad Publixtheatre Caravan has been
suggested by some artists to find an alternative solution: see Gerald Raunig (2007, 203–29).

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organized. Rousseau said something like this: the institutions, the form of
government […]. Institutions lead citizens to develop some dynamics instead of
others. So it’s up to the collective human creativity to find the right institution,
the virtuous one, rather than the vicious. [Giorgio, 38 years old, PhD student in
law, activist]

According to other members, there is an unsolvable distinction, more related to

the artistic production than to the ethics. The art, or better, the individual base
that leads to the artistic creation concerns a self-referred sphere, solipsistic,
individual, and individualistic. Nevertheless, there is no opposition with the
collective, the common. Anyway, a difference emerges between what concerns
the politics and what is intrinsic in the art:

I don’t believe that art is politic and politic is art. I think that’s bullshit: the
art is art, the politics is politics. Nonetheless, you can put politic in the art
because the art is part of…[the world]. But political art is not Brecht. Political art
is also Star Wars that talks about the Empire, you understand? It’s not true that
art is automatically politics. This naivety existed and still exists among
some…because they say ‘if I do art I’m also doing politics’: no! because you do art,
but if you don’t occupy a theater, if you don’t manage it during three years, you
didn’t do politics. Nonetheless, you can send political messages doing art
(Brecht…). [Luciano, 50 years old, television writer, activist]

The plenary assemblies are full of narrative forms about what to do and how to
stay, politically, on the stage. The end of a specific practice leaves room for a
political language. Progressively, the idea of “immaterial common good” turns
into a straight political vision.
The presence of the “artistic world” in the group of ex-occupiers scales down.
The artivists represent the possibility to keep together creativity and a political
scope, but there is still a distance between political meanings and the artistic
career that is not solved by their embodiment. Artists evaluate the quality of the
artistic proposal beyond the antagonistic lens, even when those projects are
presented by the counterpart (the TdR). Direct democracy and active citizenship
issues are obviously more related to the political aspects, so that the need to be
recognized as a legitimate institution represents a political scope. However, the
model of the Valle Theater lays on the special combination of the artistic agency
with an antagonistic political view. The artistic aspect legitimates and
emphasizes the political, never the other way around.

Conclusions
The concept of common good, as has been employed by the TVBC, becomes a
motto that leads the practices of the occupied Valle Theater, in this sense
diverging from other occupation movements and traditional collective actions.

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By attempting to rebuild a new cultural institution and proposing their

horizontal model of management, occupiers aim to create a space in which to
experiment new social relations, new economies, and new forms of civic
engagement. Taking care of a hold theater, a common heritage and symbol of a
general decline of political and cultural institutions, means to be part of an
antagonistic movement that criticizes neoliberalism, the state, and cultural
urban policies in the city.
During the three years of the theater occupation, a combination between the
artistic and the political approach emerges, enriched by the participation of
other citizens that follow the movement and give it legitimacy. The end of the
occupation represents a turning point: Deprived of a physical place where to
experiment their practices, former occupiers shift into a reflective discourse
about their experience. A political rhetoric dominates their language, isolating
the artistic perspective. A distance between the artistic and the political scope
emerges along the plenary assemblies: the combination between the two
spheres can only by imagined like a “utopia without a place”. Members of the
TVBC aim at exporting the Valle Theater’s model elsewhere in order to
reproduce an alternative management of the “immaterial common good”. At the
same time, as far as they think to be legitimated, they yearn for a return to the
theater to re-found – in a self-foundational manner, as Cornelius Castoriadis
would say – the cultural institution.
What remains of this experience? Social actors that take part in this movement,
through different roles and forms of participation, express an affirmation of
their subjectivity in opposition to neoliberalism, the retreat of political
institution – as they perceive it – and the role of the state. By their agency, civic
and artistic, the activists and artivists aim to produce new practices to
experiment their alternative project of social life, individually as well as
collectively.

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About the author

Simone Maddanu received his PhD at the School for Advanced Studies in
Social Sciences (EHESS) of Paris, France. His researches focus on social
movements, common goods, migrations, ethnic relations, and Islam in Europe.
Research Fellow in Paris (2009-2010), Cagliari University (2010-2013),
Sapienza University of Rome (2014-2015) and visiting scholar at the University
of Central Florida, Orlando (2015), he is a member of CADIS (EHESS/CNRS),
the Center of Analysis and Sociological Intervention in Paris. He cumulated
many empirical fieldworks in Italy, France, Belgium and Switzerland. He

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 Interface: a journal for and about social movements Peer-reviewed article
Volume 10 (1-2): 70 - 91 (2018) Maddanu, Theater as a Common Good

recently published the book “The Troubled City”, La città inquieta: culture,
rivolte e nuove socialità, Padova: CEDAM/Wolters Kluwer, (2016) with A. L.
Farro, and “Military pollution in no war zone: the rise and the fall of civil-
military relations in the PISQ case”, Journalism, 1-19, with A. Esu. He can be
contacted at sim.maddanu AT gmail.com.

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