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Evens Foundation

Startpagina
België
Antwerp
Evens Foundation

Exploring the intersections of democracy, youth and technology The Evens Foundation operates from offices in Antwerp, Paris and Warsaw.

Working across the arts, democracy, education, media and science, the initiatives of the Evens Foundation experiment with ways of living together which recognise the plurality of human histories, cultures, and experiences. The Evens Foundation is a public-benefit foundation started in 1990 by Irène Evens-Radzyminska and Georges Evens, who established it because of their commitment to the European

project. Born in Poland, they witnessed the troubled history of the Second World War that tore the European continent apart.

31/05/2026

Erica Benner is drawn to a particular kind of figure: not the hero who seizes the moment, but the person who holds a line when it would have been easier not to.

Adventures in Democracy shows us the people who insisted on procedures when others wanted shortcuts and named what they saw when naming it was costly.

Who understood that democracy isn't self-defending and that someone, somewhere, always has to choose to defend it.

These aren't always the people history remembers most clearly.

Who comes to mind for you (from the book, or from anywhere else)?

17/05/2026

📖 We’re coming to the end of our time with Adventures in Democracy! But it's worth pausing for a quick think before the final chapters. 🤔

Benner has taken us through a lot of history: crises, collapses, moments of repair, moments of failure. It isn't a comfortable read, but it isn't a despairing one either.

What has the book changed, complicated, or confirmed in how you think about democracy?

And what question is it leaving you with?

ericabenner

10/05/2026

Early in Adventures in Democracy, Bennett interrogates the myth of democracy’s “invention” in Athens. The story is less flattering than we’re usually told.

It wasn’t born from a beautiful idea, but because a small group of powerful people had taken too much, and the rest had run out of patience. Athens didn’t choose democracy as an ideal. It reached for it as a remedy.

That reframe changes everything that follows. If democracy begins not in inspiration but in crisis, not in certainty but in improvisation, does this explain its fragility? Or is some fragility inherent to any system built on disagreement?

26/04/2026

Adventures in Democracy is not a book that flatters its reader.

Benner is interested in what democracy asks not just of leaders or institutions, but of the people who live inside it. Somewhere in the early chapters, that question becomes personal.

What has the book asked of you that you weren't quite expecting?

If you're still in the opening sections, here's something to carry with you as you read: where does Benner seem to place responsibility for democracy's survival?

19/04/2026

📚 Adventures in Democracy treats democracy less as a system to be described than as a practice to be understood.

Benner moves through history and finds it under pressure — in moments of crisis, bad faith, and difficult decisions. The stories she chooses aren't the triumphant ones, but they expose what democracy has actually required of people, not in theory, but in practice, under pressure and pushed to make a decision.

As you read, think about what democracy asks? And of whom? 💡

12/04/2026

📚 Before we get into arguments and history, Erica Benner starts with a question that's harder than it sounds:

What do we actually mean when we say "democracy"?

Not the textbook answer. The one we reach for instinctively when we feel something is undemocratic, or when we defend something because it is.

As you begin reading, notice which assumptions you're bringing with you.

What does democracy feel like to you, before the book has a chance to complicate it?

Adres

Frankrijklei 37 Bus 12
Antwerp
2000

Openingstijden

Maandag	09:00 - 17:00
Dinsdag	09:00 - 17:00
Woensdag	09:00 - 17:00
Donderdag	09:00 - 17:00
Vrijdag	09:00 - 17:00

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+3232313970

Website

http://www.evensfoundation.be/

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