RADICAL SURVIVAL IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC

description | credits

Description

The third edition of Common Dreams School - Radical survival in times of pandemic
In collaboration with CIFAS

What kind of tools do we need as a gesture of care for the planetary? How do we nourish
multidisciplinary dialogues to imagine some sort of newness?
Do we need other ways of reciprocity to shift the unsustainable present?
From October 2020 to July 2021 (autumn, winter, spring, summer), Common Dreams Flotation School, moored in the city of Brussels in collaboration with Cifas to imagine a new format of gathering to deal with environmentaljustice while dealing with the disrupted ground caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
During Covid-19 pandemic and the planetary emergency is no longer an imagined concept, it is part of the world’s colonial history and it will contribute to long-term degradation of human and non-human ecosystems.
Together with the team of Cifas, we had to be creative, resilient, and adapt constantly with many plans B. The school was set in a ground of dystopia, but I had a clear intention to set exclusively a safe space to share our vulnerabilities,frustrations, dreams and care for each other.
The many gatherings, with a group of ten beautiful beings, had became a chasing for
survival tools, wondering between spaces, sometimes virtually other times walking in
forests, in dreams, dancing, singing, grounding, making a fire in a permaculture garden,
listening to the river, bonding, seating cozy in a sofa, wondering in the city, sharing rituals
and discovering each other skills. Each session unfolds a critical reflection about our notions of survival,

Session 1 - Autumn
Shelter – Kinship – Health
Collaborator: Steven Desanghere
Regenerative activism for mental health, grounding ourselves for the unexpected and the unknown.

Session 2 - Winter
Survival - Endurance - Activation
Collaborator: Kobe Matthys
Valuing the sense of togetherness while accessing the knowledge we inherited to creatively seizing survival.

Session 3 - Spring
Organizing - Climate justice - Ecocide
Collaborator: Marine Calmet
Dealing with the “impossibility” of a fair or just climate governance while equipping ourselves with tools in preparation for the recognition of ecocide as a crime.

Session 4 - Summer
Possibility - Becoming - Newness
Summing up previous sessions work-in-progress/sharing. Activating the ideas explored in previous sessions in a format to determine collaboratively with the group (reading, live presentation, action in public space…?)