Toolkit for a Joint Action
The “Toolkit” is a modular portable installation with the aim of education and finding the intermediate spaces of action within the system, at the same time transforming it with different tools
Galerija NOVA, Zagreb, 2014
The third module of the Creative Strategies project is a Toolkit For a Joint Action, which initially brought together several activist groups: Direct Democracy in School, New Syndicate, BRID, Women’s Front, FEM Front, ZMAG and Right to the City. With the idea of creating a platform for the development of education, particularly of closed and remote communities, of critical consideration of and active participation in the political and cultural setting, together they thought up the discursive material for the Toolkit - physically realized in interactive furniture, a spatial modular unit, created as a kind of toolkit that, for educational needs, transferred to different locations.
The Toolkit covers basic concepts from areas that represent the framework for civic awareness: syndicalism, direct democracy, feminism, practical theology, sustainable living, right to the city and engaged art. The material also includes a list of the reference works, a map of the world giving examples of social changes and an archive of labour struggles.
The starting point is the potential of everyday coping of individuals within politically and/or economically dysfunctional situations as one of the preconditions for (economic and social) survival. By researching and analyzing their potential, Toolkit opens up issues of networking and expanding joint action within the political interspaces, created by artificial recession and an increasingly widespread technocratic government, for better functioning of the immediate and wider community. Discovering and collaborating within the gray zones, interstices, intermediate spaces of liberal government, both within the country and on the international platform, opens spaces of participation for creative community organization, finding new functional solutions for daily survival and networking, becoming a legitimate means of community participation on the political platform. In this case, the creative tools of the community are not aimed at being activated against the system, but with the aim of finding an intermediate space of action within the system, at the same time transforming it with different tools. During its duration, the project was continuously updated on the web platform www.pocetnica.org.
During the exhibition in the gallery Nova, Zagreb from May 23 to July 10, 2014. the focus of the discursive part of the project was on the self-organization of workers and the new poverty in the local, Croatian context.
Video “What has our struggle given to me?”>
The video examines possibilities of workers’ struggles and self-organization in the troubled circumstances of corrupt privatization and social erosion in Croatia.
Led by the Direct Democracy in School group, the Toolkit toured Croatian cities with the aim of educating, informing, raising awareness, opening dialogue and activating the audience, primarily high school students for whom it is intended.
Toolkit on Tour:
https://www.creative-strategies.info/toolkit-travelling.htm
Entering projects equally in gallery and non-gallery spaces, treating art as a tool for knowledge transfer, informal education and as a medium for creating strategies that can respond to specific situations and conditions in society, Andreja Kulunčić consciously distances art from initial elitism, where the key role is played by tactics of using the infrastructure of the art system.
Authors: Andreja Kulunčić, Direct Democracy in School group, New Trade Union, in cooperation with the Base for Workers’ Initiative and Democratization-BRID.
Graphic design of the toolkit: Luka Juras / Spatial design of the toolkit: Mirna Horvat / Design of new parts Beginners: Dejan Dragosavac Ruta / Project organization: Martina Kontošić and MAPA Association.