Transnational Alliance
« We Cannot Work Like That. Decolonial Practices and Degrowth »
Transnational Alliance of Collective Research by the Schools of Art, Architecture, Design and Intercultural Communication
A continuum of projects, workshops, debates and events will span from September 2018 to May 2019 and address the current critical political and ecological moment through the lens of the particular urban, social, and political conditions of in and around Mechelen. Topics such as ecological debt, environmental racism, decolonizing social relations, degrowth, hope, care, and solidarity will represent not only the content within which to work, but also the material, technique and method of that work.
The cross-disciplinary alliance “We Cannot Work Like This: Decolonial Practices and Degrowth” brings together several departments of academies and universities in the region in Belgium, France, England and Hong Kong, and enables that students work together in each of their schools on a proposal for sustainable, decolonial and inclusive practices in relation to, on one hand, cultural institutions, and on the other, their own professions (artistic, architectural, design or research- related). The students are invited to look at sustainability through the self-reflexive, intersectional feminist, anti-capitalist and anti-racist lens. The participating professors prepare a joint curriculum and discuss it with the students in each of their schools.
You are all invited to use this collaborative online tool Ethertoff, an open source software program to make collective notes, developed and used by the graphic design collective OSP. This is where the collective knowledge is shared i.e. what is read, what is seen and (re-)viewed.
Meeting 1, Venice
On 27 September 2018 we meet in Venice with the members (teachers, professors, students) who are part of the alliance. We are invited by the project Commonism, conceived by Nico Dockx and Pascal Gielen for the project Swamp at the Lithuanian pavilion of the Venice Biennial of Architecture. Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas are the invited artists of the pavilion.