Project Class by Labofii (John Jordan und Isabelle Fremeaux)
Annual theme “Hybrid Ecologies“
Summer term 2017
“Think like a Forest, Act like a Swarm”
Room A.UG.25, Akademiestr. 2
Time May 14th–20th and June 18th until July 1st
Teaching language English
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“Think like a Forest, Act like a Swarm” will merge the ecological practices and design models of Permaculture with forms of creative resistance, and aim to make productive connections between artists and activists in Munich.
Permaculture is an ecological design system whose central tenet is that by observing the way eco-systems such as a forest or meadow work, we can learn to build human systems and habitats that are energy efficient, resilient, waste free and productive. Described by some as ‘the art of creating beneficial relationships’ and by others as ‘the science of connections’, permaculture merges traditional wisdom with contemporary ecological research. The idea of mimicking the patterns of natural systems can be applied to everything from planting edible landscapes to the way a performance is designed, from organising an act of creative resistance to setting up a protest camp.
Facilitated by the “Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination" (Labofii), whose practice refuses to produce political art, e.g. a piece of theatre about injustice, or a video installation about an uprising, but prefers to apply the processes of art to political action and social movements, the course will explore how the imagination and aesthetic processes of art can be combined with direct action and movement building. Creating desirable alternatives whilst simultaneously resisting the destruction of our life support systems are the entwined DNA strands of the Labofii‘s practice. We see art and activism as inseparable from everyday life.
Our experiments aim not to make art but to shape reality, not to show you the world but to change it together. Exploring the ecology of human interactions, “Think Like a Forest, Act like a Swarm” will be an intensive class, taught using consensus decision making, collective work and participatory methods of popular education. It will result in the collective design of an acts of creative resistance on (a) topic(s) of the participants own choosing.
Art activist John Jordan has been described as a “magician of rebellion” by the press and a “Domestic Extremist“ by the UK police. Co-founder of “Reclaim the Streets“ (1995–2000) and the “Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army“ he is also co-author “We Are Everywhere: The irresistible rise of global anticapitalism“ (2003, Verso). Isabelle Fremeaux is a popular educator, action researcher and deserter of the academy. Together they coordinate “The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination“, bringing artists and activists together to design tools and acts of disobedience, infamous for launching a rebel raft regatta to shut down a coal fired power station, turning bikes into machines of disobedience, using ants to sabotage banks and refusing the attempts at censorship by the BP sponsored Tate gallery. Co-authors of the film and book “Les Sentiers de l‘utopie“ (published also in Germany in 2005, Nautilus), they now live and work on the zad of Notre-dame-des-landes, a liberated territory against an airport and its world.