The Agora Project: ‘We’ (A composition)

The Agora Project is a new project we are working on; aiming to reinvent the square as a stage for assembly, exchange and direct democracy.

The agora was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of the polis. The literal meaning of the word "agora" is "gathering place" or "assembly". The agora was the center of the athletic, artistic, business, social, spiritual, and political life in the city.

WE (a composition) is the first phase of this project: a table in a public square. A consciously temporary gathering of 15 people at a time, who sit around this table every hour to explore what it means to be a ‘We’ together. A marathon conversation spanning several hours, continuously reshaping into new compositions of ‘We’s, within a program that includes both invited guests and accidental passersby.

The table is placed where a table is never usually found—but where it is urgently needed. A square, the agora, as a democratic public space where different ‘Theys’ intersect, touch, and overlap. When does ‘They’ become ‘We’? And can there be a ‘We’ that includes us all?