WHAT the PROJECT is about
We want to build a new mutual aid hospitality practice implying the creation of a broad solidarity network of NODES in 'crucial cities' for our collective professional practice, with pleasant working and domestic environments where we can nomadically co-learn, co-create and eventually collaborate. The network and practices will support artists working for example during set-up periods at biennials, design fairs and conferences, as well as accommodating workshops, rest, and relaxation. We are now developing several networked nodes in Italy and the Netherlands, and we want to expand these.
Short-term and long-term OUTCOMES
To do this we will produce a solidarity address book with all the NODES listed and a solidarity manual with suggestions on how to behave as a NODES guest and host in the domestic environment which will focus on how to build a collaborative way of doing, according to our personal experience.
Moreover the NODES project implies a reasonable research time in order to understand how to create a strategy to attract human resources and funding for the creation of new nodes and the transformation of existing ones. There is also the plan to contribute to the domestic expenses through NFT sales, FTs and blockchain strategies.
Why we take on this PROJECT and its future IMPACT
As mid-career artists - whose work has a socio-ecological nature, we are especially aware of our own economic precarity, and the understanding that we will be working 'freelance' – without the hope of a pension – for the rest of our lives. Our professional profile renders state help unlikely. Whilst the neo-liberalization of the global economy makes it nearly impossible to live and carry out our professional activities decently, when the right to affordable housing, education, access to public space, health care, and even to work as we see fit, is under constant threat.
Therefore the positive impact of the NODES network and practice on our professional lives will be huge, affording us the possibility to live, work and travel without worrying about financial exchange, forging a safety net for now and the difficult years to come.
Possible ways to EXPAND the PROJECT
The project can take on an international character by connecting the NODES network and practice to various art and design platforms (art and architecture biennials and design fairs). We want the hospitality practice to become a teaching subject in workshops, schools, academies and universities, thus spreading the culture of solidarity instead of opportunism.
A global PLANNING
The start-up of the NODES will take one year long. Its further development will take years, depending on the amplitude of its expansion. The further development is not included in the following budget.
Estimated COSTS
€ 30.000 for the start-up of the project and for the creation of this new hospitality practice. [€ 24.000 euro for a year part-time NODES network and research coordinator. € 6.000 for the production of the solidarity address book and manual.]
The artist
Lucia Babina is an artivist focusing on research and reactivation of sustainable forms of cohabitation and coexistence. Her aim is to reflect on the injustices attributed to uneven resource distribution by means of collective and artistic process. She is the co-founder of iStrike and iStrike.ultd in Rotterdam, an environmental organization aimed at creating multidisciplinary platforms of analysis, comparison, and international exchange. She is also the co-founder of the cooperative Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra), based in Rotterdam, whose practice is rooted in socio-spatial investigations leading to transformative urban projects. Together with CohStra she participated in the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021. Currently Lucia is working on the further development of the Regenerative NFT Manifesto with Debra Solomon whose first phase was supported by the Stimuleringsfonds. Lucia lectures and writes for several international platforms. (worldoflucia.com)
This proposal is part of the 'Penny for your Thoughts' project 2022.
