Visionary Protest
Cassie Thornton
Dear Everyone,
We have been working with Nsumi on a workshop for TradeSchool in May. Do you know scientists, engineers, and economists who might be able to join us to discuss the possibility of deeply creative wrench-throwing techniques for the mechanized bureaucratic landscape?
Please email if you have ideas about who to contact to help us maximize the traction of imagination.
See you soon!
Cassie
Visionary Design
and Non-Violent Civil Protest
Organized by Nsumi Collective & School of the Future Presented by Trade School & the Museum of Arts and Design http://madmuseum.org http://tradeschool.ourgoods.org
This workshop will explore the potential for new protest processes and systems, design tools, strategies, and techniques, for use by non-violent protest movements. The traditional techniques of non-violent civil protest have been practiced by people around the world in response to oppressive states, policies and proxies, going back as far as BCE 470–391 in China, when the Mohist philosophical school--who disapproved of war--cultivated the science of fortification. Today, the Occupy movement brings together multiple struggles and concerns under a common name, inciting new practices of collaboration and coordination. People are fighting against inequality, privatization, and exclusion and working to create alternatives to corporate control, the loss of public space, and the privilege of the one percent. With bold tactics and artistic innovations, Occupy has incited the global imagination. At the same time, and not surprisingly, it doesn't employ formal design processes. Also lacking are formal feedback systems, techniques of self-correction, and the formal rigor underpinning the best scientific and social research.