Can we as humans and other living beings learn to live together, in difference? Can we create a future that actually has a future? Join Sophie Krier and Erik Wong in their search for alternative perspectives, for radical imaginations, for a world in which many worlds can thrive. A search for something that is already present: the pluriverse is all around us.
Wong and Krier have adopted a perspective put forward by Arturo Escobar in his book Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (Duke University Press, 2018). What are the consequences of these pluriversal notions in daily life?
For their search Wong and Krier visit five locations at the fringes of Europe: İstanbul, Casablanca and Berlin (often seen as gateways to and from Central Asia, North Africa and old Europe) and two rural areas: the Isle of Mull and Asturias (as places for self-sufficient living).
For every edition four makers join Erik and Sophie, two locally based, and two based in the Netherlands. Every conversation and encounter builds on the previous one in an effort to create a vibrant network that connects different places, different types of knowing and ways of living.
Listen in, the door is open.
Asturias, Spain: Tuning into the struggles of a post-industrial region #8 Group talk: Empathic Communication
After living a week under one roof, working together at the farm, walking together in silence, sharing breakfasts, dinners and thoughts, the group talk comes quite naturally. Here we are: Chiara, Ana, Pascale, Cynthia, Sophie and Erik, sitting in a circle in the shade of the biggest building in Spain, built during the Franco regime: Universidad Laboral de Gijón. After a tour of art centre LABoral and a soothing minute of silence we look back on the days we spent together.
A talk about capitalism and workers cooperatives, about poverty and looking for a better future by walking away from the harsh rural life. About the pros and cons of the revitalisation of industrial cities as Bilbao and Aviles.
What did we learn, what do we take home? These are complex and confusing times, but our talk ends on a positive note: united we stand, plants and humans, and however small, changes can be made. There might me no ’them’ in capitalism, this week there was definitely an ‘us’.
References:
LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón/Xixón:http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/Universidad Laboral de Gijón, Spains’s biggest building:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidad_Laboral_de_Gij%C3%B3nInterview “Asturias, a wasted agricultural paradise” between Elena Bandera and Emilio Riccohttps://www.lavozdeasturias.es/noticia/asturias/2017/01/25/asturias-paraiso-agricola-desaprovechado/00031485375319442960395.htmGijón page on regional newspaper La voz de Asturias (the voice of Asturias)https://www.lavozdeasturias.es/gijon/“Memorias culturales de un pasado industrial”, a film directed by University of Oviedo researchers Irene Díaz and Rubén Vega:https://fb.watch/hqSrwrwljl/On radical unionism and the worker’s struggle in Spain:https://libcom.org/library/radical-unionism-workers-struggle-spain-ruben-vega-garcia-carlos-perez
22 Dec 2022
Asturias, Spain: Tuning into the struggles of a post-industrial region #7 Pascale Gatzen
Pascale Gatzen fell in love with fashion as a child, became a designer and quickly fell out of love with the competitive, capitalistic fashion system. In New York she co-founded the workers cooperative Friends of Light that fabricated custom made woven jackets from local wool. This experience evolved into the Dutch ‘Linen Project’ an – also – cooperative attempt to create a value chain from growing organic flax to making linen products with the harvested and processed fibres.
Collaboration comes with communication. Gatzen got interested in ‘empathic communication’ and made that the core of an artistic Master she set up in Arnhem, The Netherlands.
A conversation about getting in touch with felt emotions and underlyning needs, ‘should thoughts’, the succesful Mondragon cooperative and the love for making beautiful things that will never fade.
References:
The Linen Projecthttps://thelinenproject.online/Friends of Light weaving cooperative:https://www.friendsoflight.net/Nice read: Take back Fashion! by Pascale Gatzen for Apria/ArteZ:https://apria.artez.nl/take-back-fashion/About non-violent communication (what Pascale calls ‘compassionate communication’):https://www.cnvc.org/learn-nvc/what-is-nvcAbout the Mondragon worker cooperative:https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/
22 Dec 2022
Asturias, Spain: Tuning into the struggles of a post industrial-region #6 Cynthia Hathaway
We decide to have the conversation in a parked car, with an enormous hand made world-of-wool-map on our lap. As if we are on an imaginary roadtrip through Cynthia Hathaway’s practise. It fits her way of working: creating fun, momentum and dialogue. Canadian born Hathaway came to the Netherlands in the late 90ies. She calls herself an artistic ‘searcher’ without the re- attached. Always looking for surprising angles and ways to connect different fields of working and thinking. From miniature trains to giant vegetables, from founding a disco in an academic institute to growing potatoes to embody Gilles Deleuze’s Rhizomatic thinking. Her latest intervention: a wool march. A walk with a herd of 250 sheep, shepherds and dogs straight through the centre of the Dutch textile city Tilburg. To raise awareness for lost connections between humans, animals and landscape.
A talk about the art of not knowing, the dedication of amateurs, the loud Asturian hills, the global versus the local and the ongoing beat of disco music. Yeah.
References:
More about Cynthia Hathaway:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAaNgIPbXvcMore about Wool Alliance for Social Agency:https://woolallianceforsocialagency.blog/System D Academy, Sandberg Instituut:https://sandberg.nl/system-d-academyThe Department of Search (Zero Footprint Campus):http://www.hathawaydesigns.org/the-department-of-search.html
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