references

06
Oct
2020
Caring Infrastructures

Caring Infrastructures

Symposium

24–31 October 2020

Saturday, 24th of October 2020, 10 a.m – 8 p.m.
Sunday, 25th of October 2020, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
at M.1 Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung

With contributions by Malu Blume, Frauke Frech (Grand Beauty on Tour), Antje Hachenberg, Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Maternal Fantasies, Polyphrenic Creatures, Nora Sternfeld, Studio Experimentelles Design (Klasse Prof. Jesko Fezer, HFBK Hamburg) and engaged participants from the region

Curated by Sascia Bailer

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Social norms and often unquestioned values act as invisible infrastructures that determine how we shape interpersonal relationships: In what way do we care for ourselves, for each other and for our communities? As rigid as these norms and values may seem, they have the potential to be carriers of social change: Can we unlearn traditional mechanisms of exclusion and design new social protocols that focus on collective care and solidarity? Can our society become more inclusive by incorporating ethics of care into our social infrastructures?

The event Caring Infrastructures sets the local as a starting point for a series of talks, workshops, film screenings and community forums, in order to focus on encounters based on care and solidarity. Artistic, design-based, activist and local initiatives invites the audience to reflect on care practices from different perspectives and to design long-term caring infrastructures.

The curatorial cycle 2019/20 in which Sascia Bailer as Artistic Director of M.1 focused on care through participatory formats and socially engaged art, ends with the event Caring Infrastructures. The event is a continuation of the New Alphabet School’s edition on the topic of Caring from June 11-14th 2020 (co-curated by Sascia Bailer, Gilly Karjevsky and Rosario Talevi) in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. It is generously supported by Förderstiftung des Kreises Steinburg and Kulturstiftung des Landes Schleswig-Holstein.

https://www.m1-hohenlockstedt.de/en/kuratieren/2019-2020/infrastrukturen-des-zwischenmenschlichen/

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06
May
2020
Tough Guy Mountain

Tough Guy Mountain

http://toughguymountain.com/

“Established in 2012 by theatre writers, media artists and computer programmers, Tough Guy Mountain creates spectacles about the differences and similarities between art and business. They create interactive live shows modelled off of forms present in the business world, but demonstrating possible applications in the art world. Celebrating both worlds and using an appropriate amount of critique and satire is the foundation of Tough Guy Mountain’s shows.”

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12
Apr
2020
Eryn Foster, North Adams Sourdough: A Gift of Cultured Culture, 2012

Eryn Foster, North Adams Sourdough: A Gift of Cultured Culture, 2012

http://erynfoster.ca/A-Gift-of-Cultured-Culture-2012

“In May 2012, I was invited to create a site-specific work for the Oh, Canada exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in the North Adams.

The project began as a 10-day performative walk where I, along with participants, foraged for invisible local wild yeasts located in culturally and geographically significant areas of the town. Wild yeasts were harvested from several locations: parks and forests, a Joseph Beuys exhibition, an outdoor zumba event, a pizzeria, people’s homes, Dunkin’ Donuts, for example. Once enough yeasts were foraged, and the fermentation process was complete, a unique sourdough culture was then created and used to make bread and other baked goods.

In addition to cultivating a sourdough culture, I also, with assistance, constructed a custom-made bake oven to be situated permanently next to the grounds of the museum. Located on newly established community gardens property, the intention of the oven was that it would perform as a kind of usable public sculpture that along with the sourdough culture, would be given as a gift to the community of North Adams.

For one week leading up to the exhibition opening, “North Adams Sourdough Bread” was baked and given away at the community bake oven. A special ceremony involving the town’s mayor and the giving away of the first jar of “North Adams Cultured Culture” also occurred at this time. For the one-year duration of the exhibition, the culture was on display in the Oh, Canada exhibition and visitors to the gallery could request a jar to take home. Those requesting the culture, would receive a short tutorial and instructions on use; they would also receive a certificate of authenticity and other types of related ephemera.”

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02
Apr
2020

Hopepunk – Alexandra Rowland

“Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts.” 

link

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30
Mar
2020
Chris Kraus on collectivity

Chris Kraus on collectivity

From ‘The Failed Collective’ in ‘Where Art Belongs’ p 169

“There is no such thing as a failed utopian community; or, if the collective is an experiment in shared time, how can time fail? A great sense of failure couches every success. YES and SO WHAT? Is That All There Is To It? What goal do you imply with the phrase, “failed collective?” Utopia- static and therefore unreal- is never the point. Collectivity arranges itself around a desire for something, to produce something, to become something else (and who cares what else?) beyond its individual members.”

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30
Mar
2020

David Graeber on revolutionary action

From: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, p 45

“A revolution on a world scale will take a very long time. But it is also possible to recognize that it is already starting to happen. The easiest way to get our minds around it is to stop thinking about revolution as a thing – “the” revolution, the great cataclysmic break- and instead ask “what is revolutionary action?” We could then suggest: revolutionary action is any collective action which rejects, and therefore confronts, some form of power or domination and in doing so, reconstitutes social relations- even within the collectivity- in that light… And history shows us that the continual accumulation of such acts can change (almost) everything.”

p 76

“The moment we stop insisting on viewing forms of action only by their function in reproducing larger, total, forms of inequality of power, we will also be able to see that anarchist social relations and non-alienated forms of action are all around us. And this is critical because it shows that anarchism is, already, and has always been, one of the main bases for human interaction. We self-organize and engage in mutual aid all the time. We always have… [R]evolutionary constituencies always involve a tacit alliance between the least alienated and the most oppressed.”

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