TOWARDS PERMACULTURAL INSTITUTIONS: CURATING TRANSFORMATION
Fair Share: Degrowth
November 3–4, 2023

 

Language: English
Free Admission
Registration until 1 November: info@medienwerk-nrw.de
(No registration required for the lecture on Friday)

Part of the workshop series TOWARDS PERMACULTURAL INSTITUTIONS: CURATING TRANSFORMATION

Learning from and with the degrowth movement: What does the term degrowth imply? Which strategies does the movement propose to push for eco-social transformation? What are the potentials and pitfalls of transferring the degrowth paradigm to the art field?

CentrumCentrum (Łukasz Jastrubczak & Małgorzata Mazur), Stettin
Helen Turner, Artistic direction E-Werk Luckenwalde
iSaAc Espinoza Hidrobo, artist, Cologne
Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, degrowth think tank & collective, Leipzig
Beni Tonka, writer & cook, Cologne

Friday, 03.11.23

2:00–5:00 p.m.
Intro and Onboarding
With Aneta Rostkowska, Nada Rosa Schroer and CentrumCentrum (Łukasz Jastrubczak & Małgorzata Mazur)

Future Workshop on Degrowth Practices in Art Institutions
With Sulca Ariza and Christoph Sanders, Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Leipzig

Starting from a holistic institutional approach, the workshop specifically addresses the global and German "Education for Sustainable Development" agendas in order to successively incorporate principles of sustainability at all levels of the work of cultural institutions.

Phase 1: Critical introduction to degrowth approaches, explanation of the method, discussion of examples of concrete utopias.

Somatic Exercises
iSaAc Espinosa Hidrobo
Through somatic impulses and imagination, we embark upon celebrations of our body communities; urging us to acknowledge the intrinsic interconnectedness that pervades our existence. It serves as a reminder that we, as individuals, are far from being solitary entities; rather, we share a profound kinship with plenty of other life forms and temporal dimensions.

Permacultural Processing
CentrumCentrum

5:00 p.m.
The Company We Keep 
Reading Session with Helen Turner
Helen will read a conversation between artist Céline Condorelli and sociologist Avery F. Gordon to consider how friendship could be regarded as a real model of resistance to a system, and instigator of social change.

6:00 p.m.
Dinner
by Beni Tonka

7:30 p.m.
E-WERK Luckenwalde: experimenting with new prototypes for ecosystemic institutions
Lecture by Helen Turner

Saturday, 04.11.23

10:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Future workshop on degrowth practices in art institutions
With Sulca Ariza and Christoph Sanders, Konzeptwerk New Economy, Leipzig

Phase 2: Developing visions of future art institutions.
Interlude: Input from Andrea Vetter (transformation researcher) for inspiration.
Phase 3: Implementation - working out first steps towards realization

Somatic Exercises
iSaAc Espinosa Hidrobo

Permacultural Processing
CentrumCentrum

6:00 p.m.
Lunch & Dinner
with Beni Tonka

Sulca Ariza works as a trainer and artist in the education political work and committed to self-organization and community feminism. Motivated for creative processes from a postcolonial and critical perspective of power. Currently involved in the creation of educational methods on climate justice issues.

CentrumCentrum is an institution founded in 2014 in Szczecin, Poland, by Lukasz Jastrubczak and Malgorzata Mazur, who through its activities seek solutions for artistic practice inspired by the ethics of social ecology. They organize exhibitions, workshops and performative activities to experience the relationship between people, other animals, plants, objects and texts.

iSaAc Espinoza Hidrobo is an Ecuadorian performerx, choreographer and violinist based in Germany. Her Works deals with transdisciplinary constellations and experimental quests of real- time composition, decoloniality, queerness and ritualism empowering local activism. Her Solo and collaborative works have been featured in prestigious locations throughout Europe & the Abya-Yala - Americas.

Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie e. V. creates learning spaces for critical educational work. With its work, Konzeptwerk wants to give people the confidence to change society in a self-determined way. The collective connects social movements, science and civil society. Konzeptwerk works on feasible concepts and points out what blocks change. The goal in everything: a good life for all.

Christoph Sanders works for many years in the Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie on critical-emancipatory Education for Sustainable Development and Global Learning. Besides workshops, seminars and trainings, he designs learning spaces through project management and conference organization. He works in various committees on the topic and especially likes to deal with social relations of nature and Degrowth.

Beni Tonka is a writer and artist living in Cologne. He grew up in southern Hesse, North America and the Mediterranean and writes short stories, poems and works in networked art projects. For GOOD LIME he has collected the best Caribbean recipes from his second new home.

Helen Turner is the Co-Artistic Director and Chief Curator of E-WERK Luckenwalde, where she directs the contemporary art programme. Turner is a founding member of Gallery Climate Coalition, Berlin, and Advisory board member of Urbane Künste Ruhr. She has spoken internationally for Prada Frames: On Forest, a symposium curated by Forma Fantasma, World Art Foundations, Berlin Art Week at the Neue Nationalgalerie. She has published writing for Museums for Change and has been a Jury member for VISIT Artist in residence programme, LAGI 2022 Mannheim and the sustainable institution artist in residency programme. Turner was previously the Chief Curator at Cass Sculpture Foundation and has worked for Artangel. Turner received a distinction for her MA in Psychosocial studies from Birkbeck University of London under Slavoj Žižek and a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art, London.

Andrea Vetter, transformation researcher, is co-founder and designer of the socio-cultural center »Haus des Wandels« (East Brandenburg). In addition, she is an editor of the magazine »Oya« and an advisory board member of the »Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie« (Leipzig). She is a research associate at the Chair of Sociology of Technology and Environment at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.

Images
1—CentrumCentrum is located in the allotment garden in Szczecin, Poland, Photo: Małgorzata Mazur
2—first event at CC - "Happening for a Dead Bore", Szczecin, 2013, Photo: Małgorzata Mazur
3—An aerial shot of E-WERK, Photo: Tim Haber, 2019
4—FLUXDOME by umschichten,  Photo: Dr. Rene, 2020
5—Sulca Ariza, 2023