New Earth Theory

COMMONS - SHARED RESOURCES, Public park, public transport, water, farms, language, space, food, culture, housing,
COMMONING - Language - common tongue - dialect, process, long term in case of language, sharing resources, sustainable long term, management and maintenance of common resources
COMMUNAL - Something that is already shared on smaller scale, communal gardens, kitchens, washing areas, bathrooms, shared houses.
COMMUNE - A group of people sharing, caring, pattern of living together,

HOW CAN DESIGN MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

'Tragedy of the Commons'
- Garrett Hardin

--> Selçuk Balamir
Unsustaining the Commodity-Machine,
Commoning Practices in Postcapitalist

12/10
They finally responded and we set up a meeting at 1pm with Annet, the project manager.
We got there, but she was in another meeting, so we caught up with Janeeke, who is the graphic designer there. She was also a student of wdka which is fun. She explained to us how the cooperative works and what they are working on now. We also set the kickoff to meet the team on 2/11 at 12pm.

02/11
We had the kickoff.
We talked again with Janneke and also with Annet. We decided to work with leftovers from the market, which are now wasted in large quantities. The idea is to make food with those vegetables that we find at the Recycling Station that they set up with the local population working there sorting the boxes and cleaning up all the mess that the market (I mean people) leaves there. They gave us a tour of the cooperative, we saw the garden, the textile workshop, the bicycle workshop, and they also introduced us to some people. It was nice to see how the coop actually works, as Wednesdays are the main day the team meets.

15/10
Marta and I decided to go to the cooperative and attend one of the events: a tour of the neighborhood guided by the MOK (Museum voor Onbedoelde Kunst). We thought it would be a normal informational tour. It was so fun. Idk if it was supposed to be fun, but we found it hilarious. The idea was to question what makes something art, is it the author, the intention or the work itself? They guided us through "unintentional" artwork. such as a manhole cover or a stone wall presenting as concept, artist's intention and art style. In the end, we find our "own" unintentional artwork. It felt like a satire of contemporary art, and it also felt personal as art/design students. I don't know if it was but I liked it.
We also went to the market and took some pictures. I really enjoy spending time there, just looking to find real treasures like cheap strawberries or €3 really good jumpers.

21/09
We sent the first email to Afrikaanderwijk Coöperatie

06/10
We sent other email, this time in dutch.

12/11
Me, Daniela and Marta went to the market around 5:30 pm to help at the recycling station. They told us that we weren't wearing proper clothes so they put one of the food containers in a corner for us to pick some vegetables. We tried to see which food was good to use and found: A LOT of tomatoes, some ginger, bell peppers and avocados. We also collected some herbs to try to propagate at home.

(Co)operatives are people-centred enterprises owned, controlled and run by and for their members to realise their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations. Cooperatives bring people together in a democratic and equal way.

The Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative strengthens the power and qualities of Rotterdam South by investing in active inhabitants and local businesses. (Co)operative since 2013

DIARY
<<< ———————————— emails; kick-off; events; meetings; exhibition; kitchen;

New Earth Theory Logbook
Luísa Portugal

THEORY and REFERENCES ————————————— >>>
commons; social design;
the gleaners; projects

|— VISUAL DOCUMENTATION
| photos; videos; audios
V

<--- The Gleaners and I, Agnes Varda, 2000.
Documentary: Varda films and interviews gleaners in France in all forms, from those picking fields after the harvest to those scouring the dumpsters of Paris.

"Designers occupy a niche (or rather, an intersection) that it is halfway between an artist and an inventor; neither the activity of the artisan, nor the one of the engineer (Margolin).
By inhabiting a cross-disciplinary intellectual sphere and by providing concrete economic benefits, designers are highly integrated into the commodity-machine, occupying a strategic place in a world that is thoroughly designed. That said, how do we make sense of these ambiguities, and where is design labour posited in relation to the rest of the economy?"

23/11
Meeting with the team to arrange details regarding the meeting with the curator, artist and kitchen, in addition to the days on which we will serve the food.

7/12
Meeting with the kitchen.
First time cooking there: tomato+pumpkin soup to serve tomorrow at the event. The kitchen ladies are really nice. We also met the curator and the artist and already picked some crates for the entrance way.

8/12
Serving food at the movie screening event.

--- Getting to know the place ---
(market, coop, events)

Connects perfectly with what we are doing in the practice

Work with communities, offer our skills as designers to assist them to become self-organized, builded and designed.

Challenge and assist them to TAKE MATTERS IN THEIR OWN HANDS, decide their futures!

PUBLIC FACULTY PROJECT
uses strategies to rethink, redefine and re-enter public space through collective cultural action. The impetus behind Public Faculty is to learn from a place through a process of exchanging knowledge and cohabitation, and by listening to people describing their daily conditions in which they often feel trapped. It is a practice of determining how an existing conflict can be made productive by communication and by collective thinking about the situation and by making this process public. Each situation is different, but what they have in common is that they are local and specific embodiments of larger conflicts about who should be responsible and care for our common space, and whether forms of solidarity are imaginable.

Informal conversations have discussed questions such as: Who should care for public space? Who’s public budget would you cut? (about austerity measurements in Europe). What does it mean if your identity is recognized as mischievous? And what do we need to be protected from (on borders and migration)?

I think this project is a great initative because we can get real answers from the local people, taking us to the crucial conversation about their specific needs and opinions. And this is the first step to work with a community.

--- Gleaning process ---
(picking leftovers from the market)

--- Event, serving food, installation, flyers ---

Social design: there is not one conclusive definition of the field because it is still developing. Nynke Tromp (TU Delft) and Stéphane Vial (UQAM) do state that every social design has the 'common good' in mind. We see this as designing for both the collective and the individual interest.

In their framework, Tromp and Vial identify five goals that social designers are currently working on globally:
1.The well-being of disadvantaged people
2.Improving government services
3.Helping citizens to take more control
4.Development of strong communities
5.Sustainable, future-proof systems

At the Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken, we are all design researchers. Each with their own expertise. We believe that design is the key to change. As a designer you are trained to look at issues differently. This is necessary, because how we now deal with societal challenges is not a solution. Our starting point is always people. The person concerned.

Social Design Showdown is their own initiative: a platform where makers (social designers, policy makers, change experts) in the field come together to deepen social design. Together they clarify social design as a profession and put the concept on the map. Making as much impact as possible, that is the goal.

For example, during the Dutch Design Week of 2021, almost a hundred participants came together to talk about inclusivity in our field . How inclusive is social design really?

Between the events, small action teams come together to create in-depth content on the themes. For example, they contributed to the development of the Question Shaper , a template for exploring a problem together with a (potential) client. This canvas can help both designers and clients to set up Social Design processes.

Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht

BAK, basis for contemporary art is a basis for art, knowledge and the political. BAK is committed to the idea of art as a public domain and political space, providing a critical platform for aesthetic-political experimentation with and through art.

Project: COMMUNITY PORTAL
_Mental Health Symposium: Communal Care & Healing
_De Voorkamer: Community Dinner
_Unjumbling Our Histories

How to Set Up a Community Kitchen
27 January, 18.30–29 January, 21.00 2023

FUTURE EVENT that I found interesting ans also really conectade with the practice project.

Community kitchens are community-based programs in which groups of people come together in the act of cooking, eating, and cleaning. Community kitchens operate differently and have their own specific contexts and goals. Nevertheless, they collectivise practices that are otherwise often individualised and create a space in which people can connect and discover common grounds or struggles, and therefore can lead to the origination of new groups focusing on different (social) issues.