About 2 years ago this month, myself and other EdgeRyders held a session at #LOTE1 an event not dissimilar to the event taking place in Tblisi this week. During which we came up with the idea for a new kind of living and working space, called unMonastery. 2 years on we’re 5 months into the prototype advancing towards that vision, working with a group of around 10 individuals in Matera.
The founding motivation for the unMonastery (if you’re coming to the concept for the first time) are defined by two tiers of needs - firstly by those from the network of peers who initiated the project, defined by:
- The need to have time and space to develop meaningful connections between individuals, with working relationships that are built on trust.
- The need for supporting infrastructure and a place for those who are doing important work within society - the kind of important work that typically the nation state delivered to its citizens prior to becoming a surveillance vehicle and administrator of austerity.
In order to fulfil these needs in an honest manner, the model is aimed at addressing a set of broader problems in need of solutions, which are:
- Large numbers of empty and disused property.
- Austerity and the rollback of state service provision.
- High intentional or unintentional unemployment throughout Europe; particularly among young and highly skilled individuals.
The basic framework being to combine these three issues, by enabling capable individuals to become stewards of empty properties, with the freedom to deliver and collaborate on services that make sense to the communities and networks they engage. The intention is to develop and open source model that anyone committed enough can take, remix and redeploy within their chosen location.
All of this is framed within a reimagining and cross-examination of monasticism in the 21st Century.
This session will be focused on giving an overview of the project as it has progressed in Matera, an open discussion about how unMonastery has grown within EdgeRyders, how the mechanics work for getting a project such as this off the ground within the community and how you might learn from or initiate an unMonastery project itself in the future.
If there are any specific area’s you’re interested in hearing about or questions that you’d like us to focus on do comment below.
To find out more in advance of the session, please see:
unmonastery.org
Date: 2014-06-23 20:00:00 - 2014-06-26 20:00:00, Asia/Tbilisi Time.