I think it would be great to have Yerevan in the list of cities! Can you think of a co-producer along with ICA or would you be curating and hosting? For you and Alex who are embedded in a place already, it will be possible to start yourselves. But for me (in Brussels) and Nat (in Berlin) I think it’s good to have a close ally - the equivalents of ICA or The Place in our cities.
The approach is to get started with very low costs - a few hours every month and a venue… and as we discover things about where people are, we will be looking towards concrete opportunities for turning it into funded projects - either the series itself or something which comes out, say new kinds of learning exchanges and residencies - so for ICA Yerevan this would be a pool of accessing new residents or partners for exhibition circuits and so on… You probably know best what the needs are at your end. I’m signing you up for a call where we flesh this out Hoping in maximum 2 weeks.
This. Yes I can be the curator/host at ICA. Nest(the residency) is only one part of ICA and we have only 3 rooms, so it’s not residents that we need to access, but rather new partnerships and collaborations with similar initiatives, learning and exchanging new methods of working together horizontally, etc
I put Athens there because Natalia, Matteo and I are going to be there probably end of October for a bootcamp and mini festival around urban game design in the project Matteo is leading with Goether Institut and Innovathens. So I think I will be fun to set it up… Will let you know, normally we should have some contacts already!
Owen is not involved, I’ll have to talk to him though…
Hey, I’m really interested in this idea @noemi!
I’m living in Berlin now and offer to support Nat (could you tag the right Nat here for me?), would love to chat and come up with some tasks I could help with.
While I’m not very well embedded here yet (have only been living here since September), I’m enmeshed with allies who are; artists, space holders, networkers, activists.
I have capacity for facilitating, communications, coordinating with spaceholders and community building.
(Also to note: I’m part of the steward team for a similar initiative running in Berlin and Oakland with a similar idea to network local hubs around the topic of global distributed democracy and collaboration).
Edit: @natalia_skoczylas I did some light digging (more like dusting) and it appears you would be the right Edgeryder to continue this conversation with, am I right?
It sounds amazing. I am a bit overwhelmed by the positive responses we’ve gotten by the not so many users who are reading this. wow!
Can I ask, out of personal interest and trying to figure out how far and ambitious we can go with this: other than being the right person at a very right time, what makes you want to get involved? Do you see ways in which the series can contribute to your work?
Personally, I want to use it as a platform for discovering new action points and collaboration projects + sustainability models for them. If we stumble upon a solvable problem and have a lot of talent in the room, how do we make a collaboration across borders happen which will be financially supported?
I’d also potentially be interested to contribute to one in Berlin @noemi - for me, the appeal is that this idea has very concrete, limited requirements, yet offers much scope for a local group to develop its own ideas. So there’s an unusually good ratio of creative activity to admin/planning overhead. Plus, personally, I find that salon-type environments suit me very well.
There are reasons at all scales; most importantly for me, is that this concept aligns with my own dreams of holding space for conversations which matter, as I’m a geek for the emergence in group intelligence and have been honing my craft of hosting generative conversations as an art form of itself.
My work (in maori ‘mahi’ which also means life mission) is to grow serendipity through thriving networks at the glocal level. I see this series as a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the challenges in working at the local-global intersection.
The chance to step into an Edgeryders project is a benefit in itself; I’ve been looking forward to the right time, which appears to be now
Building relationships in the community here as well as the community of artists in Berlin is a tangible benefit for me. I’m comfortable enough in the quality of my capabilities to commit to freelance work in this field, and it always helps to be connected.
My worldview asserts that creativity is the lifeforce, and I’ve become deeply interested in the commons as a necessary container for creativity; for artists to feel safe enough to fail and make awkward learning steps. There is a sense of forgiveness that I find lacking from the remains of our utilitarian society.
That’s why this project in itself appeals to me, beyond the desire to find work in the fields I mentioned above.
I look forward to our discussion next Friday, and am meeting with Nat this afternoon to tune in with each other.
Hey @noemi ,
That sounds like a great initiative.
What is the best way to keep up with the advancement of/ help with the project (I’m in Brussels as well)?
Maybe it’s possible to partner-up here with culture meet-up who are organizing similar events.
Hi Guillaume, thanks for your interest, super happy that you wish to join!
Most of us who have replied so enthusiastically to this idea are meeting on Friday morning to discuss our strategy and calendar of events… I’m sending you the calendar invite just now, hope you can make it!
If not, I’ll be in Brussels next week and we can meet face to face,
But it’ll be good for you to get to know others from other parts of the world, so hoping you’ll join on Friday!
I currently run a FB group with over a 1000 artists/ maker members.
Can I copy the concept note and put out via the group, the Black Arts Alliance, UK, and British Black and Asian Studies Association, or is it too early?
Also, no mention of events in the UK - not friends anymore? And the Culture Squad link appears to be set to private or a 404 error.
Wow, thanks @jasonschumann
The events in UK will be in Bedford, hosted by Alex. Or do you mean others…? We are going where people around here show interest in hosting them. Hence Yerevan completely as a surprise :-))
Thanks for sharing, I will definitely give you a headsup when we publish the official invite for Brussels,
Now everything you see in the Culture Squad is the team at work, so a lot of ideas and drafts (btw the page loads properly for me… maybe there was a hiccup yesterday?)
As i said in my other post, you’re welcome to put the word out to other networks who may be interested in organising their own iterations.
The key is always for them to feed back into the networked conversation online (more details very soon, we’re just finalising the digital portals)
I may be able to participate directly if there are other UK orgs that want to join in, but each group should really self-organise so that what they are discussing is relevant to their local context.
Hoping in maximum 2 weeks.
