1/2/8 Research Forum – Spot on Economies

Spot on Economies took a look at economies as crucial cross-roads between social, ecological, and political futures. Over the course of two weeks (01.-17.10.), PACT opened its whole house for a collaborative residential research phase framed by a public programme of high-profile lectures and workshops. 

Over three weekends, Spot on Economies brought together artistic and theoretical positions that take up on and renegotiate different economic concepts.

Radical questions on the economy met with alternative practices and together opened up new horizons of thought and agency that are urgently demanded by the environmental crisis, feminist movements and processes of decolonization. The contributions to the public programme break away from thinking built on concepts such as scarcity, property, and growth and give space to alternative logics.

With lectures & workshops by and with: Ozan Alakavuklar, Valeria Graziano und Giulia Palladini, Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Common Wallet, Surbhi Kesarund Ingrid Kvangraven and Groundwerk.

Spot on Economies — 1/2/8 Recherche Forum in photos

Valeria Graziano / Giulia Palladini – Against a logic of scarcity: on militant abundance

Ozan Nadir Alakavuklar – Working towards an activist academy: Bridging communities, transforming economies

Lecture / Q&A

Common Wallet – Practicing trust through money
Talk 

Surbhi Kesar / Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven – Decolonising Economics: Theory and Practice
Lecture / Q&A

In the framework of the Spot on Economies transdisciplinarily research residencies, seven groups were invited to share and develop their ideas, questions, and proposals with other scholars, artists, practitioners, and activists.

Licia Soldavini and Mascha Fehse

Licia Soldavini and Mascha Fehse are urban planners who with the Initiative ConstructLab in Berlin develop inclusive, unifying approaches to the conception, planning and implementation of community building projects. During their residency, they address the question of how to create sustainable ways of organising cultural and activist (care) work in the urban realm.

Lasse Schlegel and David Schwarzfeld

In their project Platzhalter, Lasse Schlegel and David Schwarzfeld look from the perspective of designers at the numerous advertising spaces in our cities. By renting such spaces, they want to give agency to new ideas for the collaborative reclaiming of public places and accompany this process in the long term with workshops and other forms of exchange.

Mathis Richtmann, Sonia Kuhls, Rosa Hesse and Úlfur Logason

Mathis Richtmann, Sonia Kuhls, Rosa Hesse and Úlfur Logason work as economists on non-academic forms of mediation to build a basic understanding of our financial markets and banking systems. Their interest in this developed from their frequent experiences of social discomfort in situations where money and finance are publicly discussed.

Philipp Frey, Will Stronge, Christoph Schneider and Julian Siravo

With backgrounds in the humanities, social sciences, architecture and technology research, Philipp Frey, Will Stronge, Christoph Schneider and Julian Siravo build a multidisciplinary team that have come together to initiate joint processes of thinking on the concept of innovation from a democratic and local perspective.

Chloé Bonnie More, Flora Fettah and Jeanne Giacobetti

Chloé Bonnie More, Flora Fettah and Jeanne Giacobetti are three curators who address food waste in our society in both practice and theory. During the forum, they will organise joint lunches with recipes made from leftover food to encourage discussion and reflection among the other participants.

Practices of Attunement

Practices of Attunement are Aslı Uludağ, Moritz Gansen, Simon Fleury, Chara Stergiou, Sam Nightingale and Gala Rexer, an international group of artists and researchers invested in  rethinking the economics of education. At Spot on Economies they come together to question in particular what it might mean if university studies were not directed towards the final product of an academic degree.

Josephine Findeisen, Agnes Bakucz Canário and Verena Brakonier

Josephine Findeisen, Agnes Bakucz Canário and Verena Brakonier are a group of artists working on a long-term artistic research project on classism and gender that will develop in performative and discursive formats.