HUM III: From Port to Port, A Sonic Convening

Public Program co-organized by Hajra Waheed and Sara Alberani

Saturday 19 september 2026 h 10-18, Munizioniere

h10 |  Gathering

h10.30 |  Welcome and Opening Remarks

h 11 | Boycotts, Direct Action, Strikes: The Power of Unionization, with José Nivoi (Leadspokerson CALP, USB – Unione Sindacale di Base Member)

This session addresses direct action and collective organising within contemporary port labour struggles. It situates strikes, blockades and coordinated mobilisation within Genova’s longer history of antifascist dockworker organising and internationalist struggle, and considers the port as a site of collective power against militarisation and the circulation of arms.

h12.15 | Arms, Ports and the Infrastructure of Violence with Gianni Alioti (Analyst & Researcher, The Weapon Watch) & Riccardo Rudino (CALP/USB Member) 

How do arms move through civilian ports, and how can these movements be traced, contested, and blocked? Focusing on the monitoring practices of The Weapon Watch, Genova, the session brings together labour activism and investigative research around arms circulation through ports, from documentation and reporting to challenging the legal frameworks governing their movement and blocking their passage through collective action.

h14.30 | HUM III: From Port to Port, Transnational Maritime Solidarity & Cultural Workers with Peter Cole (Labour Historian & Organizer), Hajra Waheed (Artist & Educator), Sara Alberani (Curator & Organizer) 

Through sonic histories drawn from eight ports, HUM III examines radical labour organising among dockworkers and coastal communities within anti-imperialist, anti-war, and anti-apartheid struggles. It traces histories of transnational solidarity and explores the possibilities of alliance-building between dockworkers and cultural workers in collective struggles for liberation.

h16 |  Dockworker-Led Port Walk, Genova with José Nivoi 

For generations, dockworkers and working-class communities have been at the centre of Genova’s cultural and political life. Led by a CALP/USB member, this walk traces the political histories that continue to shape Genova’s port, often absent from official narratives. Drawing on lived experience, memory, and knowledge of the port, the walk brings these histories into view on their own terms.

The walking tour begins at the main entrance of Palazzo Ducale. Capacity: 30 persons

Sunday 20september 2026 h 10-13, Teatrino di Palazzo Ducale

h10 |  Gathering

h10.30 | Radio & Social Movements: Diffracting the Airwaves: Lessons from Radio and Collective Listening with Rayya Badran (Writer, Editor & Translator)

This talk addresses the role of radio in forging anti-colonial solidarities, with a focus on Palestine and other transnational struggles. The session launches a seven-week broadcast series, produced as part of the HUM III programme and broadcast on Radio AlHara, with the radio programme embedded at CAP (Circolo Autorità Portuale). Airing every Tuesday from September 29 through November 5, it traces histories of transnational maritime organising across ports, connecting Genova’s dockworkers and port communities with struggles elsewhere.

h11.30 | Archives & Social Movements: Labour on Film with Reem Shilleh (Researcher, Curator, Filmmaker and Co-Founder of Subversive Film)

The film programme launches with a conversation on the role of moving image in labour organising across interconnected struggles. It then continues as weekly screenings on Thursdays at Cinemino Ad Astra from 9 October to 5 November, bringing historical and contemporary films into dialogue and connecting film preservation with organising that continues today.

Simultaneous Interpretation: Cecilia Pozzi & Marta Parodi. Live Italian–English interpretation is provided for all indoor public programme events. Italian–English subsequent translation will be provided for the port walk.

The protagonists

José Nivoi is a lead spokesperson for CALP (Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali, Autonomous Dockworkers’ Collective) and a member of USB (Unione Sindacale di Base, Base Trade Union). Emerging from Genoa’s traditions of labour militancy, anti-fascism, and working-class internationalism, CALP has become internationally recognised for its efforts to challenge the movement of weapons through civilian ports and to link workplace struggles to broader movements against war, militarisation, and exploitation. Over the past fifteen years, José has been a central figure in building networks of solidarity among dockworkers, trade unionists, and social movements across the Mediterranean and beyond. His perspective is grounded in the belief that workers are not passive participants in global logistics systems, but possess the collective power to intervene in and reshape them.

Gianni Alioti is a trade unionist, researcher, and co-founder of Weapons Watch, Genoa, an independent observatory dedicated to monitoring the production, transport, and export of weapons through the Port of Genoa and beyond. For decades, his work has focused on the relationship between labour, militarization, global logistics, and the arms trade, drawing attention to the often-hidden infrastructures that connect local economies to international conflicts. Through research, advocacy, and collaboration with dockworkers, trade unionists, journalists, and peace movements, Weapons Watch Genoa has become an important resource for understanding the movement of military cargo through civilian ports and the political responsibilities embedded within global supply chains.

Riccardo Rudino is a dockworker in Genova, a member of CALP (Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali, Autonomous Dockworkers’ Collective) and USB (Unione Sindacale di Base, Base Trade Union). He has been a prominent figure in CALP’s organising against the movement of weapons through the port of Genova, linking workplace struggle to broader struggles against war, militarisation, and the arms trade. CALP’s actions have included refusing the loading and unloading of military cargo and challenging the use of the port for shipments destined for war zones. Rudino has also been involved in building solidarity between dockworkers and wider social movements, drawing on Genova’s longstanding traditions of internationalist labour organising and collective action.s

Hajra Waheed is an artist and educator whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, drawing, video and sound, sculpture and installation, exploring the nature of power, the human impact of displacement and incarceration, and the transformative possibilities of liberation struggles. Waheed’s work has been exhibited worldwide. She holds a BFA, an MA in Cultural Studies & Education, and pursued doctoral research in International and Comparative Education. Before focusing on her artistic practice full-time, she taught extensively and worked within popular and informal education movements, developing practices of collective learning. She lives and works between Montréal and Yogyakarta.

Sara Alberani is an independent curator and cultural organizer based in Rome. In 2020, she co-founded LOCALES, a platform dedicated to site-specific interventions and decolonial practices in public space. She co-curated the Trampoline House collective at documenta fifteen, and her curatorial practice explores the intersections of political ecology, labour struggles, and social and climate justice. She is currently investigating the impacts of extractivism on the water ecosystems of Northeast Italy and the Adriatic Sea as the recipient of the Tentacular Fellowship 2026–27 at Ocean Space / TBA21-Academy, Venice.

Peter Cole is a historian, writer, educator, and trade unionist whose research focuses on labour and working-class history, social movements, anti-racism, and international solidarity. His work examines how workers and unions organise across lines of race, ethnicity, nationality, and geography, with particular attention to dockworkers, maritime labour, deindustrialisation, and the political cultures of port cities. He is the author of Dockworker Power: Race & Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area (2018), which traces the connections between dockworker struggles across two continents, and Ben Fletcher: The Life & Writings of a Black Wobbly (2021), on the revolutionary unionist and organiser. He is a Research Associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Rayya Badran lives in Beirut, is a writer, editor, and translator whose practice centres on sonic and musical practices. Her writing has appeared in publications including Bidoun, ArtReview, Art Papers, Norient, The Wire, and others. She was guest editor of the Beirut Art Center’s online publication The Derivative in 2020, and curator and editor of Norient City Sounds Online Special: Beirut in 2022. From 2014 to 2021, she taught courses on contemporary art and sound studies in the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at the American University of Beirut. In 2023, she was co-curator of the second edition of the Listening Biennial, is a member of the Arab Image Foundation and runs a bi-monthly show on Radio Al Hara.

Reem Shilleh is a researcher, curator, editor, and artist, living between Brussels and Ramallah. Her practice draws on sustained research into militant and revolutionary image practices specific to Palestine and its wider solidarity networks, tracing the transnational links between past and present struggles. Shilleh is a co-founder and member of Subversive Film, a cinema research and production collective that works with historic and militant film practices related to Palestine and the region, with a focus on film preservation, archival research, and the circulation and recontextualisation of moving images. She is also a member of The Kitchen, the Brussels-based workspace and research centre.