1. Active Collective
A lecture and workshop organized for the Studium Generale of the University St.Joost, in collaboration with Naomi de Wit and Philippa Driest
For the Studium Generale we were asked to organize a lesson for the students that explores forms of self-organization as a model for making things together. We decided to divide the lesson in two parts, the first part as a lecture and the second as a workshop or game. During the lecture we illustrated the history of the Association Poortgebouw, which is the place where we live and work on different kinds of social and cultural projects, while we showed some examples of our work.
001a group discussion
001b
001c cooking scheme
001d main questions
001e consulting the fortuneteller
The second part was organized as a small game which would allow the students to imagine their own community. We divided the group in two different teams, each of them with a different case scenario that would give the start to the play. We provide the players with a list of questions, a guideline for shaping the idea and the organizational structure of their house, and a series of empty blueprints to fill in with sketches of the spatial planning. To add a layer of complexity to the game, we included some extra questions to be answered by consulting a gigantic fortune teller. With this exercise we wanted to trigger some bigger questions on collective management and sustainability of space by allowing the people to fantasize with methods of dealing with legal, political or situational constraints.
001f the two groups starting instructions
001g choosing a number from the fortuneteller