FAIR TRADE LIVING PROJECT
OVERVIEW The project is participatory, will be sited in a space that is open to the public and in a central location. The project aims to inspire social change related to our daily consuming pattern and to get aware of our personal footprint in context to a global situation concerning environmental conditions, which affect people (from different countries) in different ways. The project idea was created in 2008, in reaction to the huge rises in global food prices, which affect world’s poorest people, the most. The project is a socio-political intervention; inviting people to participate in a one-week project that aims to make aware of the impact we have on the environment through mass-consumption on different levels. People will be confronted with their daily consuming pattern (wastage of electricity, water, food). Cutting down our use does not only help the environment but the money we save could also support people in developing countries. Participants will be asked to calculate the amount of money they usually spend in one week on electricity, water and food. Everything they save because of staying at the centre can go (voluntarily) into an existing fund of an organisation that supports people in certain countries. To give this money away will be a side effect that can motivate people to take part and make a contribution with a spontaneous gesture. This can help to underlay the theoretical approach of the project to achieve the possibility of activating some directed change.
OUTCOME Documentation of such a project in video and text posted on the Internet can serve as a role model for interventions in places around the world.
ACTUAL PROJECT NEEDS
1. indoor space serving as Project-Centre (i.e. gallery space can be used for this, bringing the social space into the white cube)
2. promoting the idea to citizens of the area (approx. 10-20 people should take part)
3. organising seven specialists for talks
4. supervisor (in case of problems within the group)
5. organiser (who is responsible for the whole process and invitation of guest speakers that can add to a healthy discussion and information on certain topics)
THE PROCESS The Project-Centre will be set up as a camp for people who will voluntarily participate in this project. Participants are asked to stay at this centre under living conditions comparable to developing world-areas. They will be asked to accommodate to a very basic style of living for this period of time. Experts from different field background related to environmental issues – living and working in the area of the Project-Centre will be invited to held talks and sessions at this centre. (It might be necessary to have some Medical Support available for the participants onsite, depending on the size of the group. Of course under such conditions problems can arise. The artists and maybe a supervisor will assist and support the participants in every possible way).
DURING AND AFTER THE PROJECT producing documentation material for Internet and further promotion to worldwide cultural institutions – starting to build a network of such art-interventions.
part of BURN YOUR IDEAS Project by sonance.net
© EXISTENCE THEATRE ENSEMBLE
MONOGRAPH – in progress
VIDEOWORKS BLU-RAY DL50GB