Dispatch: From the Eleventh Session of Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life
The second in a series of dispatches from The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life from artist Ana Kun, a participant in the course Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life.
We started the session inside the greenhouse of The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life at Siliștea Snagovului, around a table of snacks, in the blazing sun, with an introduction of the history and struggle of the Kurdish people focused on the writings of Abdullah Öcalan, Jineolojî feminism and the autonomous region of Rojava. The journey continued with a conversation between visual artist Hiwa K and philosopher (and course leader) Ovidiu Țichindeleanu through several landmarks of Hiwa K’s practice, who explains his views in a poetical, whimsical and highly quotable way:
I’m not based in a country I’m based on my own two feet
I’m an extellectual not an intellectual
I’m not a star I’m a half-moon
I make my own time...
Hiwa K’s convivial practice is larger than the sum of his visual artworks and includes dancing, singing, cooking, exchanging ideas, developing partnerships and so on. While in deep mourning for his soulmate and long-time collaborator, curator Aneta Szyłak, Hiwa K talked about longing instead of belonging (where the first is a film and the latter is an instant), the tea house meetings during Saddam Hussein’s regime where surveillance would be confused by talking in codes that open spaces of interpretation, and emphasizing the importance of including the other (even if they are the enemy) in formulating new forms of resistance – resistance is a mesh of good and bad and if you break it, it will create a wound.
Part of Hiwa K’s collaborative practice is also cooking his mother’s recipes with her video call directions. This time he and some of us prepared a nurturing Kurdish vegan meal of rice with walnuts and pomegranate molasses and a side of green salad.
We closed the Eleventh Session of Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life, entitled ‘Conviviality and Everyday Knowledge’, with a generous storytelling time, where more people in the group got to contribute memories and tales of healing, joy and hope (hiwa in Kurdish).
Related activities
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–tranzit.ro
Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life
The experimental course ‘Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life’ (November 2023–May 2024) celebrates as its starting point the anniversary of 50 years since the publication of Tools for Conviviality, considering that Ivan Illich’s call is as relevant as ever.
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HDK-Valand
Climate Forum I
The Climate Forum is a space of dialogue and exchange with respect to the concrete operational practices being implemented within the art field in response to climate change and ecological degradation. This is the first in a series of meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L'Internationale's Museum of the Commons programme.
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–Van Abbemuseum
The Soils Project
‘The Soils Project’ is part of an eponymous, long-term research initiative involving TarraWarra Museum of Art (Wurundjeri Country, Australia), the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, Netherlands) and Struggles for Sovereignty, a collective based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It works through specific and situated practices that consider soil, as both metaphor and matter.
Seeking and facilitating opportunities to listen to diverse voices and perspectives around notions of caring for land, soil and sovereign territories, the project has been in development since 2018. An international collaboration between three organisations, and several artists, curators, writers and activists, it has manifested in various iterations over several years. The group exhibition ‘Soils’ at the Van Abbemuseum is part of Museum of the Commons. -
–Moderna galerijaZRC SAZU
Summer School: Our Many Easts
Our Many Easts summer school is organised by Moderna galerija in Ljubljana in partnership with ZRC SAZU (the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts) as part of the L’Internationale project Museum of the Commons.
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–MSU ZagrebVan AbbemuseumModerna galerijaZRC SAZU
Open Call – School of Common Knowledge 2024
MSU (Zagreb), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), MG+MSUM (Ljubljana), ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana) and L'Internationale invite applications for the new School of Common Knowledge (SCK) to be held in Zagreb and Ljubljana 24–29 May 2024. The School of Common Knowledge draws on the network, knowledge and experience of the L’Internationale museum confederation. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world. The SCK is built on the basis laid by the Glossary of Common Knowledge project initiated by Zdenka Badovinac and Moderna galerija (Ljubljana) and continues its co-learning methodology.
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–Institute of Radical Imagination
Gathering into the Maelstrom
‘Gathering into the Maelstrom’ in Venice at Sale Docks is a four-day programme curated by Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI) and Sale Docks.
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–MSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU
School of Common Knowledge 2024
School of Common Knowledge draws on the network, knowledge and experience of the L’Internationale museum confederation. Built on the basis laid by the Glossary of Common Knowledge, a project initiated by Zdenka Badovinac and Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, it continues its co-learning methodology. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world.
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–Institute of Radical Imagination
Gathering into the Maelstrom (exhibition)
‘Gathering into the Maelstrom’ is curated by Institute of Radical Imagination and Sale Docks within the framework of Museum of the Commons.
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HDK-Valand
Climate Forum II
The Climate Forum is a series of online meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L’Internationale’s Museum of the Commons programme. The series builds upon earlier research resulting in the (2022) book Climate: Our Right to Breathe and reaches toward emerging change practices.
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HDK-Valand
Climate Forum III
The Climate Forum is a series of online meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L’Internationale’s Museum of the Commons programme. The series builds upon earlier research resulting in the (2022) book Climate: Our Right to Breathe and reaches toward emerging change practices.
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The Open Kitchen. Food networks in an emergency situation
with Marina Monsonís, the Cabanyal cooking, Resistencia Migrante Disidente and Assemblea Catalana per la Transició Ecosocial
The MACBA Kitchen is a working group situated against the backdrop of ecosocial crisis. Participants in the group aim to highlight the importance of intuitively imagining an ecofeminist kitchen, and take a particular interest in the wisdom of individuals, projects and experiences that work with dislocated knowledge in relation to food sovereignty. -
–Museo Reina SofiaMACBA
Open Call – School of Common Knowledge 2025
Museo Reina Sofía and MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) invite applications for the 2025 iteration of the School of Common Knowledge, which will take place in Madrid and Barcelona 11-16 November 2025. The School of Common Knowledge (SCK) draws on the network, knowledge and experience of L’Internationale. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world. This year, the SCK program focuses on the contested and dynamic notions of rooting and uprooting in the framework of present – colonial, migrant, situated, and ecological – complexities. Building on the legacy of the Glossary of Common Knowledge and the current European program Museum of the Commons, the SCK invites participants to reflect on the power of language to shape our understanding of art and society through a co-learning methodology.
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–IMMA
L'Internationale Museum of the Commons Summer School 2025
The Irish Museum of Modern Art and the National College of Art and Design, as part of L’internationale Museum of the Commons, is hosting a Summer School in Dublin between 7-11 July 2025. This week-long programme of lectures, discussions, workshops and excursions will focus on the theme of Landscape (post) Conflict and will feature a number of national and international artists, theorists and educators including Jill Jarvis, Amanda Dunsmore, Yazan Kahlili, Zdenka Badovinac, Marielle MacLeman, Léann Herlihy, Slinko, Clodagh Emoe, Odessa Warren and Clare Bell.
Related contributions and publications
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Decolonial aesthesis: weaving each other
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Climate Forum I – Readings
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…and the Earth along. Tales about the making, remaking and unmaking of the world.
Martin PogačarLand RelationsClimatePast in the Present -
Art for Radical Ecologies Manifesto
Institute of Radical ImaginationLand RelationsClimateInstitute of Radical Imagination -
Climate: Our Right to Breathe
Land RelationsClimate -
A Letter Inside a Letter: How Labor Appears and Disappears
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Glossary of Common Knowledge, Vol. 2
Schools -
Glossary of Common Knowledge
Schools -
Seeds Shall Set Us Free II
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The Veil of Peace
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Discomfort at Dinner: The role of food work in challenging empire
Mary FawzyLand RelationsSituated Organizations -
Indra's Web
Vandana SinghLand RelationsPast in the PresentClimate -
Towards Collective Learning, or, Decompartmentalizing Education
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One Day, Freedom Will Be
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Art and Materialisms: At the intersection of New Materialisms and Operaismo
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Dispatch: Harvesting Non-Western Epistemologies (ongoing)
Adelina LuftLand RelationsSchoolsClimatetranzit.ro -
Dispatch: From the Eleventh Session of Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life
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Reading list: School of Common Knowledge 2024
School of Common KnowledgeSchoolsSituated OrganizationsMSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU -
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‘Territorios en resistencia’, Artistic Perspectives from Latin America
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Dispatch: A Buriti Tree
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Poner el nombre a una causa en tierra extraña
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Dispatch: To whom it may concern – the voice of the censor and re-calibrating words as an act of survival
AnonymousSchoolsSituated OrganizationsMSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU -
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Reading list - Summer School: Our Many Easts
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Climate Forum II – Readings
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Klei eten is geen eetstoornis
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Dispatch: ‘I don't believe in revolution, but sometimes I get in the spirit.’
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Dispatch: Notes on (de)growth from the fragments of Yugoslavia's former alliances
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Forget ‘never again’, it’s always already war
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Graduation
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Depression
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Climate Forum III – Readings
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Soils
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Dispatch: There is grief, but there is also life
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Atención: participar en el Museo de los Comunes
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Sonic Room: Translating Animals
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Encounters with Ecologies of the Savannah – Aadaajii laɗɗe
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