farewell, Art
Bureau d'Etudes
In June 2020, three axis will be available on this page that explore redefining the arts and their teaching in a collapsing society. A full text about these axes can be downloaded below.
The first axis concerns the art of exploring and mapping the landscape of possibilities. Since 1897, when sociologist Emile Durkheim published his seminal study on suicide, it has been known that suicide statistics correlate with our relationship with our future: the fewer the possibilities for harmonious integration in society, the more the aspirations frustrated and social ties broken down, the higher the incidence of suicide.
The second axis concerns the art that works towards the making of a common world after capitalism. This art is defined as the capacity to work collectively in an open and uncertain world where the nomenclature of beings is not fixed: a world made of multiple – even (seemingly) incompatible – rationalities, ontologies, epistemologies brought together.
The first axis concerns the art of exploring and mapping the landscape of possibilities. Since 1897, when sociologist Emile Durkheim published his seminal study on suicide, it has been known that suicide statistics correlate with our relationship with our future: the fewer the possibilities for harmonious integration in society, the more the aspirations frustrated and social ties broken down, the higher the incidence of suicide.
The second axis concerns the art that works towards the making of a common world after capitalism. This art is defined as the capacity to work collectively in an open and uncertain world where the nomenclature of beings is not fixed: a world made of multiple – even (seemingly) incompatible – rationalities, ontologies, epistemologies brought together.
This art of the common world after capitalism encompasses two main principles (and, perhaps, others, but these are the ones we have identified at the moment): The first principle is that of moral economy: less is more. The second principle of this new art and its teaching crosses the triad ‘work/place/people’, introduced by geographer Patrick Geddes. The third principle, that of the commons, privileges the art of commoning over the art of appropriation and monopolisation.
The third axis of our redefinition of art and its teaching in the current state of collapse concerns time, that is to say, memory: the ways to reactivate memories, to remember, project, and collectively establish what is no longer, and not yet.
The third axis of our redefinition of art and its teaching in the current state of collapse concerns time, that is to say, memory: the ways to reactivate memories, to remember, project, and collectively establish what is no longer, and not yet.