The Democratic Drinking Bar is an interactive situated action by Ann De Keersmaecker that intervenes in the PDC2018 official reception bar. The drinks menu of the Democratic Drinking Bar is created together with the stakeholders of the conference; people that navigate in close proximity of the bar, from international workshop hosts to the local cleaner. Each stakeholder can make several decisions, from putting a drink on the menu and naming the price of that drink, to deciding where the profits of the selling of that drink go to.

By inviting the stakeholders to shape the drinks menu, Ann De Keersmaecker co-acts as a bar owner, intervening in the existing bar. The democratic intention of the intervening action changes the selection of drinks, the financial model, and possibly even the decisions of the visitors of the bar.
The Democratic Drinking Bar questions the semi-publicness of a bar, whether and how a bar represents the people that meet there and visit it. It attempts to visualise a small-scale locally embedded democratic system intertwined with the capitalist system. Ann De Keersmaecker believes that a bar, where a specific audience meets, may be shaped by that audience and its stakeholders.

Project by Ann De Keersmaecker