Brave space
An alternative formulation of “safe space”, a “facilitation practice to emphasize the need for courage rather than the illusion of safety” (From safe space to brave space, text by Brian Arao & Kristi Clemens, 2013), in order to create learning spaces where taking risks is necessary to grow individually and collectively.
collaborative revisioning
collaborative revisioning is a form of collecting of hidden, yet unknown, new, and invisible or forgotten narratives and associated knowledge. It creates a space within which stories can be re-told, discussed, and preserved. It emphasizes dialogical work which connects existing networks and encourages the formation of new alliances.
Dis-/Jointed Cartographies
Dis-/Jointed Cartographies can be considered as the broken link between human, more-than-human agencies and their environments, due to violent and oppressive incidents in the Anthropocene. Symptoms include psychosomatic illness, and a general feeling of alienation.
Floatingline
Floatingline is defined as a concept that contrasts with the rigid and pressurized nature of a traditional deadline, instead of implying a heavy burden, a floating line suggests a sense of airiness and spaciousness, emphasizing balance and responsiveness to the environment. This concept highlights the interdependence between situational constraints, such as challenging circumstances, re-prioritizing along the way, awareness of one's physical state (like breathing, balancing, and staying afloat). The floatingline, therefore, represents a more fluid and responsive approach to time and task management, acknowledging the dynamic interaction between an individual, their tasks, and the environment they operate in.
Institutionalization
Institutionalization is the process of aligning with established systems, often involving funding structures, governmental regulations, and organizational frameworks. This may provide stability, resources, and a platform for collective endeavors, but it can also entail risks of dehumanization, tokenism, censorship, and reduced autonomy. We need to keep a careful balance between institutional support and maintaining a critical, grassroots approach in our curatorial practices. It underscores the importance of continual reflection, transformation, and efforts toward financial autonomy within the larger context of community engagement and social movements. Operating within institutionalizing/-ed structures, curation needs to be dedicated to creating spaces for collective imagination, intimate connection, and contextualization, fostering an environment where dissent, nuanced dialogues, experimentation, vulnerability, and (un)learning are central. Only with such spaces can we survive in a hostile system and contribute to a larger movement of personal and social transformation.
Precarity
Precarity in a general understanding describes the state of being chronically uncertain or likely to get worse. A precarious existence can be characterized by lack in predictability, security, material or psychological welfare. This experience of precarity can be so profound, that it permeates the entire life of an individual or collective. (Cambridge Dictionary, “Faces of Precarity: Critical Perspectives on Work, Subjectivities and Struggles”)
Radical Self-compassion
Radical self-compassion is a tool to counter societal conditioning which bids that we employ judgment and hierarchical thinking in the quest to prepare ourselves to participate in the market economy. Radical self-compassion is acknowledging, expressing and honoring wherever and whoever you are right now in your life’s process as opposed to never ceasing to fight to prove yourself and shame yourself into improving.
Saldo (revisited)
Salso is an ongoing process of transformation that makes one (possibly) becoming a better self.
Unlearning
Unlearning is the path towards learning as learning naturally broadens your unknowns.
very close to them
To stay very close is a form of protection and care, which can also foster mutual aid. We would like to introduce the act of staying close as a practice. This proximity functions on different levels, a first one is to document and archive stories of others and traces of inspirational figures creating a collection, making struggles visible and uncovering invisibilities. To gather and build networks as a relational practice is another strategy to surround oneself with peers and establish proximity, which is more performative and ephemeral but complementary to a practice of historicizing.