In 2020, what was left of the public sphere melted away: streets and shopping malls, libraries, museums and leisure centres were fenced off and life relocated to a flat screen world. At the same time, in 2020 the public sphere has been weaponised. Global, grassroots mass demonstrations have erupted everywhere, toppling public monuments and pushing back against the violent policing and surveillance of bodies. The work of Public Sphere students usually activates exactly those spaces that lie beyond the traditional places of art production and consumption. Students collect architectural debris to tell stories of gentrification, perform in city squares, infiltrate multiplayer game platforms, work with others to establish temporary autonomous institutions and publish fanzines about art and politics. Migrating online has not dimmed the work of our students. With the world outside fraught and largely inaccessible, they have used these platforms to put forward a demand for a better, more inclusive, more democratic and more open public space to come.

Pil Kollectiv, Pathway Lead, Public Sphere