In Search of the Pluriverse

Warming Up to the Pluriverse #8: Bonus track – Pluriversal Exercise: The Art of Attention

This bonus exercise, recorded by Jay and Isa themselves, is all about choosing a ‘sit-spot’ and building up a relation with it over time. Thank you: Starhawk for inspiration and guidance and Jack Jordan for sound production.
Share your special spot findings via pluriverse@hetnieuweinstituut.nl.
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming Up to the Pluriverse #8: On making the yes and the no

Warming Up to the Pluriverse #8: On making the yes and the noWith Jay Jordan & Isa Frémaux
In this last – but much more to come, stay tuned! – Warming Up talk we meet Jay Jordan and Isa Frémeaux, co-founders of Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Labofii). This lab brings artists and activists together to design tools and acts of disobedience and resistance. Unhappy with the world of performance and art (Jay) and institutional education (Isa), they created their own practice and approach in which there is always a ‘no’ and a ‘yes’ present, after the zapatista movement. Since 2015 Jay and Isa are residents of the zad (zone à défendre, zone to defend) in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, close to Nantes. From a reserved area for an airport, these 4000 acres evolved over the last 50 years in a beautiful life experiment. A place where the gaps between art, politics and daily life are dissolved. Listen to an electric talk about ‘a world that exists today, because it wasn’t allowed to exist to start with’. And if it is up to us, this is only part 1…
References
Paths Through Utopias (112 min)vimeo.com/218495549
Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imaginationlabofii.wordpress.com/www.labo.zone (as of April 2021)
ZAD Forever Blogzadforever.blog/
Read about the insurgent roadworker here: Jordan John & Fremeaux Isabelle, “Cultures of Rebellion. Notes against extractivist art and for the art of life”, in: Klaxon 13 – Taking action with the living, 2019 accessible online: www.cifas.be/sites/default/file…living_-_pdf_1.pdf“Dead Man”, Chris Burden, 1972
Notes from Nowhere (Ainger Katharine, Chesters Graeme, Credland Tony, Jordan John, Stern Andrew and Whitney Jennifer, eds). We are everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anticapitalism. London/New York: Verso Books, 2003artactivism.gn.apc.org/home.htm
The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. A user’s guide to demanding the impossible. London/New York: Minor Compositions/Port Watson, 2010. Accessible online at: demandingimpossible.wordpress.com/
“As we speak a zad just got evicted against the construction of a high speed train in Gonesse near Paris”, March 4 2021.reporterre.net/A-Gonesse-la-Zad-…a-lutte-renforcee
‘Remembrement’ (French denomination using the metaphor of body parts for land consolidation processes aimed at scaling up agricultural land)fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrement
Naturalistes en lutte. (Amateur and professional collective of naturalists mapping the ZAD to assess its ecological value. In French)naturalistesenlutte.wordpress.com/
“1974 is when the zad started. It started out as a movement by farmers for nourishing land.” See: Lambert Bernard, Les Paysans dans la Lutte des classes, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, Collections Politiques, 1970
Letter from the inhabitants who resist (2008) in: Defending the Zad, Mauvaise Troupe Collective, Éditions de l’Éclat, 2015, p.5mauvaisetroupe.org/spip.php?article143
Brian Eno, Axis Thinkingwww.servinglibrary.org/journal/6/axis-thinking
ZAD ritual on 17.01.2021 for the anniversary of the abandonment of the airport project, with the collective La CAR - Cellule d’Actions Rituelles of the ZADwww.youtube.com/watch?v=zABCfKb3y…&feature=youtu.be
More digging material:
Two small documentaries on the ZADwww.youtube.com/watch?v=GDj5WY01o08www.youtube.com/watch?v=InUtCdDQlCY
John Jordan and Isabelle Frémeaux in conversation with Rob Hopkinstransitionnetwork.org/news-and-blog/…y-imagination/
The future of protest (Dutch spoken, 40 min)www.vpro.nl/programmas/tegenlic…st-van-protest.html
Faire des Cabanes (making huts, French spoken, 9 min 31)vimeo.com/291501146
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming Up to the Pluriverse #7: Bonus track – Making life anew

A pluriversal homework task by Arturo Escobar.
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming Up to the Pluriverse #7: On designing otherwise

In this talk we meet Arturo Escobar himself, author of ‘Designs for the Pluriverse. Radical Interdependence, Autonomy and the Making of Worlds’ (2018, Duke University Press), the book we use as a guide for our pluriversal search. Escobar is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Political Ecology at the University of North Carolina. As early as 1987, he criticised the downside of ‘development’ from a Western perspective. His search for plural ways to co-inhabit this planet is inspired by Afro-Colombian social movements, and their plea to realise ‘a world in which many worlds fit’. In this personal conversation design is approached both as a system, and as a language and praxis to activate the notions of radical interdependence and – communal – autonomy.
References
 
Kothari Ashish, Salleh Ariel, Escobar Arturo, Demaria Federico and Acosta Alberto Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, Delhi: Tulika/AuthorsUpfront (AUF), 2019. License: Creative Commons. Accessible online.
Escobar, Arturo. 2020. Pluriversal Politics: The Real and the Possible. Durham: Duke University Press.www.dukeupress.edu/pluriversal-politics
Osterweil, Michal, Kriti Sharma, and Arturo Escobar. Designing Relationally: Mankind and Restor(y)ing Life. Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming.
Rising inequality: Red Handkerchief Protests in Colombiawww.arte.tv/fr/videos/097615-00…-rouges-de-la-faim/
Protests of Nasa indigenous people against the government’s handling of the pandemicdistribution.arte.tv/fiche/ARTE_REP…_LA_TRIBU_NASA
Escobar Arturo. Autonomía y diseño. La realización de lo comunal, Universidad del Cauca, 2016www.slideshare.net/delDespojoCrnic…-arturo-escobar
Why the Philodendron Monstera has holes!www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/sc…ss-cheese-plant
The book by Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (1982) first directed Escobar’s thinking on "development" towards a Foucauldian interpretation of development as a "discourse".
For more details on the 1998 river basin workshop that Escobar co-designed, particularly its contribution to conceptualizing "the territory" and the Pacific region as a "region-territory of ethnic groups", see Escobar Arturo, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995/2011).
The term diseño de culturas (design of cultures) emerged in the mid-80s within the work that the foundation Fundacion HablaScribe (set up by Alvaro Pedrosa, professor at Universidad del Valle, Cali) did on research and activism with grassroots groups all over the Colombian South West.
Winograd Terry and Flores Fernando. Understanding computers and cognition. A new foundation for design. Addison-Wesley Professional, 1987
Margulis Lynn, Sagan Dorian. What is Life? University of California Press, 1995/2000.
Maturana Humberto and Gerda Verden-Zöller. The Origin of Humanness in the Biology of Love. Charlottesville, V: Imprint Academic, 2008.
Nhat Hanh, Thich. The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 2008.
Ferreira da Silva, Denise. 2015. “Before Man: Sylvia Wynter’s Rewriting of the Modern Episteme.” In K. McKittrick, ed. Sylvia Wynter. On Being Human as Praxis. Durham: Duke University Press.
“Design/ing Paths towards Post-Covid Transitions: Reimagining socio-human systems on a pluriversal key, Design PhD 2020 Summer School, Polimi PhD programme in Design, Politecnico di Milano, June 22, 2020www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d2jXRs7L8I&t=600s
The idea to move away from institutional concepts of health, education and agriculture to the active forms of engagement with and in the worlds we inhabit through healing, learning, and growing food was first articulated by Gustavo Esteva, Universidad de la Tierra, Oaxaca, México.
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming up to the Pluriverse #6: Bonus track – On sexual creative energy

The main conversation ends with the notion of a child-like sexual/sensual energy that we tend to disconnect with while growing up. In the bonus track Camila dives into ‘that beautiful thing that we feel in our whole body’. It is linked to the vagus nerve that connects the brain to our sexual organs. How can we (re)activate this nerve? Listen!
References
“ The vagus nerve is a wonderful channel of sexual energy.”selfcervix.com/pages/science
“The gag reflex has a lot to do with life and death. It triggers a kind of release.”www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/gag-reflex
Transition Design borrows methodologies from Social Sciences to address so-called “wicked” problems (climate change, poverty, loss of biodiversity, pollution) in an effort to catalyse societal transition towards more sustainable and desirable futures. See critical writings by Cameron Tonkinwise on the matter.www.cd-cf.org/articles/design-fo…-from-and-to-what/
Glossary entry web mag
Mamihlapinatapai is a beautifully succinct fuegan word referring to seeing and being seen, the meaning of which Chilean curator Camila Marambio phrases as “I know that you know that we both know what we want, but neither of us, neither of I’s, is willing to say so.”en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamihlapinatapai
About the Pluriverse extra entry (…) One of my ancient poems is about the word recorder, which means to touch again the chords of the heart. “Re” is again, and “cordar” comes from “core”, and “core” is the heart. – Cecilia Vicuña in conversation with Camila Marambio in 2015 in: MARAMBIO Camila, VICUÑA Cecilia, Slow Down Fast, A Toda Raja (An ancestral festering wound), Berlin: Errant Bodies, 2019, p.22
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming up to the Pluriverse #6: On being plural

In this sixth Warming Up talk, we meet Camila Marambio – a being as plural as the worlds she inhabits, falls in love with, and seeks to protect. Camila is the founder/director of Ensayos, a nomadic interdisciplinary research program that has been collectively unraveling the eco politics of the archipelago of Karokynka a.k.a. Tierra del Fuego for about a decade now. Camila completed her Phd in Curatorial Practice at Monash University, Melbourne with both a TV web series “DISTANCIA" and an exegesis (a critical explanation or interpretation of a text) with the title: ‘DISTANCIA: A measure of intimacy.’ Besides all this, Camila identifies and plays with the roles of private investigator, eco-sexual, permaculture enthusiast, and flautón chino player/dancer. Her home base is in Papudo, a coastal town two hours north of Santiago de Chile.
A mesmerising talk about cosmic changes, circular stories, a pluriversal owl and the notion of with-with.
References
Ensayosensayostierradelfuego.net“Corona under the ocean. The see undoes the land”Tba21-academy – Corona-under-the-ocean-the-sea-undoes-the-land-w-camila-marambioWeb series “DISTANCIA" (co-directed with Carolina Saquel)www.ladistancia.tv/
Four of the chapters from the exegesis “DISTANCIA: A measure of intimacy” have been published as separate essays:www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108…22.2020.1831805brooklynrail.org/special/RIVER_RA…l/The-Go-Betweenwww.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108…49.2020.1774865www.discipline.net.au/
In 2021 Camila will be a post-doc fellow at The Seed Box: An Environmental Humanities Collaboratory (Linköping University (LiU), Sweden). Her work there will be centred on her forthcoming book Sandcastles: cancerous bodies and their necro/powers co-authored with gender scholar Nina Lykke.theseedbox.se/kerb-journal.com/articles/triptych-of-viral-talesninalykke.net/about/
Eco-sexualsexecology.org/
In the cosmic weather report that opens this talk, Camila speaks of a possible shift to the era of Aquarius.earthsky.org/human-world/when-w…-of-aquarius-beginmobile.facebook.com/106381397697619…w.google.com%2F
The Chilean town of Papudo on the Pacific is located on a fault line. “Every evening it shakes, it tremors.”www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/archivos2/pd…C0064447.pdfwww.municipalidadpapudo.cl/emergencia.pdflink.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02042278
The flautón chino is a “two-in-one” instrument used as a “spiritual technology” in the Andes. Its players are called dancers.boletinmuseoprecolombino.cl/wp/wp-conte…rtic.-2.pdfwww.memoriachilena.gob.cl/archivos2/pd…C0038283.pdf
“We all make beginners’ mistakes”. Some of Camila’s mentors and elders, whom she wishes to acknowledge in guiding her on her path, include artist Cecilia Vicuña, Kombumerri philosopher Mary Graham, conservation biologist Bárbara Saavedra, and the poet Fidel Sepulveda.www.ceciliavicuna.com/newspolsis.uq.edu.au/profile/2235/mary-grahamchile.wcs.org/Nosotros/Personal/Search/Equipo.aspxen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Sepulveda_Llanos
El con-conen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufous-legged_owlwww.konkon.cl/
Cosmological Garden Course, Center of Arts, Design and Social Research (CAD+SR).centerartsdesign.org/
Mesodermbiologydictionary.net/mesoderm/
Artists Christy Gast and Caitlin Franzmann are fellow Ensayistas.ensayostierradelfuego.net/programs/ens…tic-connect/
Greg Lehman and Julie Gough are Tasmanian friends and mentors.www.utas.edu.au/alumni/our-alumni…essor-greg-lehmanjuliegough.net/brief-biography/
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming up to the Pluriverse #5: Bonus track – Stones have laws

In addition to our main conversation with architect/researcher Sean Leonard, co-founder of Alice Yard, we added a short audio clip about Stones have Laws, a film made by Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan en Tolin Erwin Alexander, in close cooperation with Saamaka and Okanisi communities along the Surinam River. We all enjoyed this ‘visual experience’. 
Reference
“Dee Sitonu a Weti / Stone have Laws” (2018) trailerwww.filmfonds.nl/page/7836/stones-have-laws
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming up to the Pluriverse #5: On celebrating smallness

In the fifth talk we meet up online with architect/researcher Sean Leonard, part of Co-RD Limited, and co-founder of Alice Yard, a contemporary art space located in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, which hosts and facilitates an ongoing programme of artists and artists’ projects, where networking, collaboration, improvisation and play are key. In 2020 Leonard was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Tilting Axis Fellowship made possible among others by Het Nieuwe Instituut. This position includes collaborations with the Amsterdam Museum, De Appel, The Black Archives and FKA Witte de With / Melly. This is also how ‘In Search of the Pluriverse’ and Leonard crossed paths. A vivid talk about heritage, the yard as a space of play and negotiation, swamp lodges and stilt walkers.
References
Tilting Axis Fellowship 2020 Jury Reporttiltingaxisfellowship.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/…hip
Sean Leonard’s online archive & journalkorjaal-ing.space
Alice Yardaliceyard.blogspot.com/
Caribbean Beat, Issue 141, MEP PublishersSean Leonard: “Artists, this space is available” | Caribbean Beat Magazine; www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-141/sea…ixzz6couWBUsp
1962, year of independence of Trinidad(The video below is a classic piece of footage for many Trinbagonians)www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVlcBLX6UHU
First Peoples I.Arie Boomert, The Indigenous Peoples of Trinidad and Tobago from the First Settlersuntil Today. Leiden, The Netherlands: Sidestone Press, 2016.www.sidestone.com/books/the-indige…nidad-and-tobago
First Peoples II.Tracy Assingwww.bocaslitfest.com/author/tracy-assing/
First Peoples III.Arawak and Caribs First Peoples(Although a short article, Sean Leonard found this reference useful as it puts on the table the issue of the convenient and contrived narratives about the the indigenous peoples by the colonisers)blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropolo…umbus-met/
Capuchin missionaries - from the Fransiscan order of roman catholic priests(The Capuchins arose in 1525 with the purpose of returning to a stricter observance of the rule established by Francis of Assisi in 1209. The activities of the Capuchins were not confined to Europe. From an early date they undertook missions to non-Catholics in America, Asia and Africa, and a College was founded in Rome for the purpose of preparing their members for foreign missions.)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Fr…s_Minor_Capuchin
Place names and languages of indigenous descent in Trinidadsta.uwi.edu/stan/article13.asp
Hosay Yard Festivalwww.triniview.com/hosay/2706051.html
Woodwork & Belmont neighborhoods, Port of Spain, Trinidadwww.instagram.com/p/B7ymEvFpqGS/?u…ig_web_copy_link
The little Carib Theatre by Beryl Mc Burniewww.caribbean-beat.com/issue-20/bery…st-lady-dance
1000 Moko Jumbie project by Kriston Chencaribbeanlinked.com/editions/caribb…s/kriston-chen/
Ndyuka Maroons in Surinamewww.mpm.edu/research-collection…ons-research/ndyuka
Dénètem Touam Bona, « Cosmo-poétique du refuge, Comment les esclaves en fuite ont réinventé la liberté », Z Revue itinérante d’enquête et de critique sociale, n°12 Guyane Trésors et conquêtes, 2018, available online at :www.terrestres.org/2019/01/15/cosm…ique-du-refuge/
On art and social practice in Trinidad (not discussed but interesting further reading)articulatecaribbean.com/50-50/
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming up to the Pluriverse #4: On avoiding assumptions

In this fourth talk, Wong & Krier speak with architectural researcher Kornelia Dimitrova and social designer Bernhard Lenger, co-founders of Foundation We are, a collective of nine creative minds and makers that functions both as a playground for their different individual practices, and as a joint design consulting agency aiming to transform social and legal systems. How to keep your design practice close to the ground? Can we still have hope for Europe? And what is the similarity between a personal burn-out and climate change? Tune in to find out.
References
Foundation We Arefoundationweare.org/
Creative Industries Fund NL talent page, Bernhard Lengertalent.stimuleringsfonds.nl/studio_bernhard_lenger
World Design Embassieswww.worlddesignembassies.com/embassies/water-2/
Waterdier (trans. water animal)www.waterdier.nl/
This is Ecocidewww.thisisecocide.org/
Studio Kornelia Dimitrovawww.kodimitrova.com/info.html
Oase Journal, Issue 107 (forthcoming 2020)www.oasejournal.nl/en/Issues
Hannah van Lutterveltwww.hannahvanluttervelt.nl
Letter to Europewww.instagram.com/p/B8JAyEjlvBx/?u…ig_web_copy_link
Full letter to Europe recordingUser-670828571 – Letter-to-europe
Sarah Wiener, Austrian politicianwww.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/19767…H_WIENER/home
Bulgaria protests, begun on July 9 2020 (timeline of the first 100 days)www.svobodnaevropa.bg/a/30896267.html
Bivol (Investigative Journalism)bivol.bg/
Radio Svobodna Evropa / Radio Free Europe (Daily News)www.svobodnaevropa.bg/
Ibiza Scandalwww.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/…-does-it-matter
Maxime Benvenutomaximebenvenuto.com/
Speculative scenarios for mental health institution GGze, Eindhovenwww.tue.nl/en/research/researc…ggze-de-grote-beek/
Reporting from the intersection of mental health and sustainable developmentwww.archined.nl/2020/12/reporting…able-development/
“Social Design for Guenine Inclusivity” seminar, The Social Design Lobbyddw.nl/en/programme/4529/soc…d-genuine-inclusivity
Kaylee Rosalinakayleerosalina.nl/
Social Design Showdownwww.socialdesign.nu/
Hillary Cottam, Participle collectivewww.participle.net/
Georges Orwell, Shooting an Elephantwww.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f…an-elephant/
Empathic researchpure.tue.nl/ws/portalfiles/port…2543_9205_11_PB.pdf
Bas Raaijmakers (STBDY) on empathic conversationswww.stby.eu/2017/02/03/empathic-conversations-2/Manzini Ezio. Design, when everybody designs. An introduction to design for social innovation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015.mitpress.mit.edu/books/design-whe…verybody-designs
Renée Frissen, Open Embassywww.openembassy.nl/en/about-us-2/
Uncut bonus track reference
Anne Ligtenberg, BNOwww.bno.nl/partners/anne-ligtenberg-19912
Kiki van Eyckkikiandjoost.com/
Not discussed in detail in this take, but linked:
Social Design Lobby interview archivewww.thesocialdesignlobby.com
The Moral Labwww.kodimitrova.com/moral-lab.html
Burn-out. Exhaustion on a planetary scale, a research led by Marina Otero Verzier at Het Nieuwe Instituut (2019).research-development.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/…ale
McPHIE, J. Mental health and wellbeing in the anthropocene : a posthuman inquiry. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811333255
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.

Warming up to the Pluriverse #4: Bonus track – Designing collectively

Reference
DD BNO magazinewww.bno.nl/page/dd
For more information about In Search of the Pluriverse visit hnix.nl/pluriverse and follow @insearchofthepluriverse on Instagram.