lumbung News of the Day, October 2020

Lumbung News of the Day

13 October 2020

Topic: Assembly Programme

Next week we will have our Digital Assembly in which we will talk about each of our plans in the coming two years. In this letter the proposed schedule and some practical remarks.

Purpose of Assembly: this Assembly is to share your plans, or specific questions/dilemma’s, in relation to your work in and with your ecosystem, its sustainability and how documenta can be useful in that. This will help to understand each other better and find potential synergies and issues to collaborate on.

The Schedule:

Date	Time in GMT	Who?
Tuesday 20 October	12-13	A-team	Check-in A team
	13-14	JAF
	14-15	ZK/U

Wednesday 21 October	12-13	Question of Funding	Ckeck-in QoF
	13-14	Trampoline House
	14-15	MAMA

Thursday 22 October	12-13	Gudskul	Check-in Gudskul
	13-14	Inland
	14-15	OFF

Tuesday 27 October	12-13	Festival sur le Niger	Check-in FSLN
	13-14	A-team
	14-15	A-team

Hosting: each member will get one hour to self-host a meeting and talk about their practice/plans/questions/dilemma’s, in a way that works for you.

Check-in: we propose to start each day with a short check-in of about 5-10 minutes to tune in with each other in a non-rational way. The first speakers of the day will do that check-in.

Harvest: we aim to have two harvesters, but please also share your notes at the end.

Translation: after consultation of needs we are arranging for Spanish, French, Indonesian and Arabic translation for some of the sessions. If the ones needing this translation cannot join some of the sessions, please let us know, because then the translators do not come without being needed.

Lumbung News of the Day

14 October 2020

Topic: New Lumbung Members

As we have written to you about before, and discussed with some, we would like to invite a following batch of lumbung members in collaboration with you. Our proposal is to grow the lumbung to about 20 organisations or collectives. In this news of the day some more info and a call to propose members.

Two new members already

In the meantime we are happy to introduce the two new members we have been talking to you about before, and that we already invited during the summer:

Britto, Bangladesh https://brittoartstrust.org/
Wajukuu, Kenya https://wajukuuarts.wordpress.com/

So that makes us 11 already. They will have some time to introduce themselves during the upcoming Assembly and more with them after.

Why more members now ? We would like to propose to continue with the idea of growing to 20 for several reasons. First, because enriching the group with another 11 will provide richer ground for our resource sharing and potentials to find synergies. Also because it will allow you to propose others to come in, and with that will possibly make it easier for you to feel at home, start collaborations, or amplify the knowledge gained through lumbinging and documenta fifteen in a more organic way. We also think it is important to have a wider ‘diversity’ of kinds of practices that are lumbung in spirit and will give a more inclusive insight in what lumbung can be and how art and social change practices manifestate in all sorts of senses, for ourselves, for documenta fifteen and beyond.

Two requests to you:

To think with us about who could be potential new lumbung members to consider to invite.
For those interested, join a temporary working group that will work on compiling the list of potential new members, think of how to include them, speak to them and eventually invite a number.

In relation to the first we would like to start with compiling a list. Please add to this NEW MEMBERS list the name(s) of organisation(s) or collective(s) that you think are very lumbung in spirit and values (see also 02_Second-Draft_booklet-lumbung-ruangrupa-15_02 (1).). We would like to highlight the aspect of ‘inclusivity’. We have noted that maybe we have been quite inclusive in inviting organisations from different geographies and practices, but could be way more inclusive in including people that encounter barriers in society that disable them from participation in platforms like ours, be it through social-economic, race, physical, gender, mental or whatever other barrier. We would like to make more effort to think this through inviting new lumbung members, without making them representative of such issues or ticking boxes.

In relation to the working group, please let us know by 20 October if you would like to participate in this group. Tomorrow we will send you the overview of all topics that will be open for collaboration in relation to documenta fifteen so that you will have better insight into where to set your priorities. These all on a voluntary basis, no pressure, and next to the main one, which is building collaboration with and within the lumbung itself on whatever issue and whichever member you are interested in.

Thank you, this will be an exciting conversation!

Lumbung News of the Day

14 October 2020

Topic: New Lumbung Members

Two new members already

In the meantime we are happy to introduce the two new members we have been talking to you about before, and that we already invited during the summer:

Britto, Bangladesh https://brittoartstrust.org/
Wajukuu, Kenya https://wajukuuarts.wordpress.com/

So that makes us 11 already. They will have some time to introduce themselves during the upcoming Assembly and more with them after.

Two requests to you:

To think with us about who could be potential new lumbung members to consider to invite.
For those interested, join a temporary working group that will work on compiling the list of potential new members, think of how to include them, speak to them and eventually invite a number.

Thank you, this will be an exciting conversation!

LUMBUNG NEWS OF THE DAY

16 october 2020

OUR WORKING RHYTHMS & QUESTIONS FROM ARTISTIC TEAM TO LUMBUNG

Being confused of everything that is going on regarding lumbung and documenta fifteen? Below some more explanation on the different streams of activity we are in and where you can contribute. With drawings of Daniella Praptono.

There are three flows that we are in, and all are interconnected

lumbung members as a hub working for sustainability of their ecosystem
lumbung building
documenta fifteen, ruruHaus and Kassel exhibition

WHAT IS DONE IN THESE THREE STREAMS AND WHAT IS THE ORGANISATIONS MECHANISM?

FIRST STREAM

lumbung members develop their program as planned and share knowledge on the experimentation on sustainability in their ecosystem. Collaboration with lumbung members and the presence in Kassel become part of that circle.

how can lumbung feed into that?
artistic harvesting of process for lumbung and documenta fifteen?

Organisation mechanism:

lumbung member – hub in collaboration with local ecosystem
presence in Kassel: lumbung member in collaboration with artistic team
artistic harvesting with additional support/artists

SECOND STREAM

We are in the process of getting to know each other and find synergies in our work and resources. We also need to start building the rice barn where we can store our resources and start to share them. We have several mechanisms to do this so far:

Meetings hosted by members, like radio Alhara, the meetings that have been hosted by JAF, Inland etc.on their practice.
Bi-weekly zoom meetings
Digital Assembly from 20 October to support development of each one’s work in the local ecosystem, other Assemblies to follow
Building digital tools-website that will make visible the process and where we store resources
Any one to one conversation that is happening
Harvesting of processes in lumbung

Organisation mechanism: as much as possible self-organised, but A-team will provide hosting and organisation capacity/some budget for this.

What needs to happen on the short term:

Establish a hosting group: a group that thinks on the process for the coming months on how to build lumbung and share resources in Covid times. Also to think specifically on how the distribution of resources can be discussed and decided on. Please put your name on sign up list WG.

THIRD STREAM

The artistic team is working on all aspects of documenta fifteen and the relation to gGMBH. We would like to do this as much as possible with the (input or in co-creation with) lumbung members. This is voluntary however. Below a description of several topics for which we have working groups.

Lumbung members that are interested to join a working group or one or two conversations in that group are very welcome, please put your name on the sign up list WG in case you want to.

Next to that we would appreciate to receive your specific input, recommendations, questions, knowledge on the following questions (see highlighted text in following Annex).

QUESTIONS FROM ARTISTIC TEAM TO LUMBUNG MEMBERS FOR DOCUMENTA FIFTEEN *3^RD stream

Education– rurukids

Lumbung Pesantren The pesantren education system originated from traditional Javanese pondokan; dormitories; ashram for Hindu or viharas for Buddhists to learn religious philosophies, martial arts and meditation. The term pesantren derives from the root word santri or student—pe-santri-an or the place of the santri. As social institutions, pesantren have played a major role over the centuries. With education playing a vital role in documenta fifteen (no longer an afterthought with supporting role), we are reclaiming the term “pesantren” itself, bringing it to the inclusive root of the word, while shedding our collective understanding what knowledge, and therefore education, is.

Audience should also be understood differently, from passive consumers of exhibited art works, to makers of meanings and experiences themselves. If we understood our public as a body of diversities, documenta fifteen’s Pesantren has a strong connection with Inclusivity working group (see further below paragraph about this). d15’s Pesantren should take diverse demographics as its targeted audience—from children to the elderly, from Kasselers to visitors, legal bodies and illegal ones. Education: what form of education that you think specifically can be shared? Get in touch with Kunil, Farid, Andan, Ayse.

rurukids

Rurukids motto is “children are important, they are our future”. One of the rurukids’ platforms is to share knowledge between artists with children, students, parents, and teachers through art with an exploration of various media and fun ways. Apart from the formal knowledge they get at school. We are sure that there are certain methods and special ways from you in the field of education, through artistic practice that has been done and can be shared, and even continues to develop. One example is, currently we are working on how to talk about the Lumbung for Kids, what strategies can we do? Together with parents and teachers also. Rurukids: if you are interested in being involved to share skills with children, give them space, and rethink contemporary art events through the lens of children through your artistic practice approach, please sign up on this sign up list WG.

Publications

On the Blurb of each Member: We are thinking of having a series of concise publications that can tell more about each of your history, context, thinking, and relation to your initiatives. Inspired by this lumbung blurb that we have made before: we think that it will become a rich compilation that can introduce the different practices of each member while telling the values and stories! We wanted to hear whether producing it would be something that also matters to you, and if it is: we hope that you can come up with collaborators from your ecosystem to work on this and to articulate it the way you both desire.

As it is also part of our communication framework to introduce the lumbung members (by using a publication approach like this)—they will be launched/made available until September 2022.

On Publication Topics: When we are speaking about publication, we are passionate about knowing what is important to you and want to use this moment to co-produce. In short: we hope to understand whether there is a need to create publication on certain topics that are important to you; but haven’t had a chance/resources to make it happen? and to also have the chance to work with researchers, writers, or artists of your choice in order to realize this.

Please use this sheet to let us know what the publication topic is, and share shortly e.g what is the context/idea behind, a format that you are having in mind?, etc. So that we can soon discuss in the working group once you have signed up.

On Publisher and Distributor: the plan is to share all publications as free eBooks where people can download and read, while still letting the idea of a print on demand to still be on. For that—we are hoping to also work with local publishers that exist in each lumbung members’ hub/ecosystem to create a network of lumbung publishers in different localities; that can allow access to inexpensive publications (as we decentralize the printing process) while at the same time enable the stories to sustain and resonate far further as each publisher can also contribute by translating their selection of publications into local language. Please use the same sheet as above if you have publishers in mind in your ecosystem who are open to working with lumbung value —that you’d like to share your thoughts about, and to soon be in touch with.

As a summary: we are looking forward to hearing your thoughts about publications until 20 November 2020.

Harvesting

We are thinking of a way to record all of the collective action in the ecosystem/hubs of each of the lumbung members, and of lumbung as a whole. As we see lumbung and documenta fifteen as a process of co-writing and co-narrating, harvesting becomes a tool for collective authorship of material. To make it possible, we hope to invite storytellers to host that process together with the community involved in each ecosystem. And also invite a variety of artists (writing, drawing, film, radio, comic etc.) that can artistically harvest our collective discussions. This material can then be disseminated by everyone to the larger community/audience as a way to impart knowledge from praxis and engage in wider discussions through different media (as publications, podcasts, films, artist projects, in the d15 exhibition etc.).We hope that you can come up with proposals for storytellers and artists from your ecosystem to do this. There is a budget available for this, so also for inviting a-several storyteller(s) and artist(s) to harvest your ‘local’ process. Write suggestions in this list of harvesters.

Communication

When thinking of how to apply the spirit of lumbung in our communication approach: we are considering the importance of seeing the already existing media platforms by each of lumbung members as also resources and spaces to converse; with a broader, diverse community.

Further: we are hoping to amplify our lumbung communication via your channel; and to rethink communication together as an exchange amongst the lumbung members while emphasizing a more conversational based communication and the importance of storytelling. For example, as the usual press release strategy is prime to be rethought—we already started with an exploration on “press release” last June 2020. Multiple ways of communication, instead of a monologue or authoritative tone should be promoted forward. Hopefully, we can continue creating other models and use different channels in communication with the press and public.

Please be in touch with Ameng, Andan and Reza if you are interested in building this together, and inform us if you can share a platform to co-produce the content together with.

Website

In the near future by early 2021—we will soon be launching our lumbung website, and we hope to think about it as also a place of interaction and activity (rather than merely a place to store information) and as an addition: how it can also become a space for people to share knowledge-based content? Yes, we are thinking about a website as a kind of a publishing platform that the lumbung members could continue to co-develop beyond 2020 and to start with what the lumbung members can contribute to the webpage or what is the content they would like to bring into. We even are thinking of maybe starting calling it often more as community.media or public.space.

For the lumbung website: the working group has started with many participants. In a separate email we will send you a survey sheet to guide this working group understanding better how to build the website further.

Funding – economy

We would like to start an economy and rethinking funding working group in lumbung, please sign up on

A main question for the lumbung is how to start to share resources and also how to decentralise the focus on money as a resource. As part of this, an urgent question that this group needs to think about is how we can share and distribute documenta and funding resources within the lumbung, and in the documenta fifteen exhibition at large, with as starting points our values of independence, regeneration, transparency, generosity and fairness.

Inclusivity

We are looking for artists, thinkers, community organizers, and activists who can help us think of inclusivity and especially disability as a social justice issue. We understand how disabling barriers in society render some of us Disabled and stop Disabled persons from living equal lives. We want to make comprehensible and understand how disabling barriers in society make some of us disabled and prevent disabled people from leading an equal life. We can see this as a social and political form of regulating resources and forms of segregation. A serious consideration of the topic means that we must question the social structures that want and promote these distinctions. If we mean inclusion sincerely, we need to start working with them early in the process.

How do artists view and act on the topic? What can we learn when we approach the topic from different perspectives and fields of knowledge and disciplines? This learning from multiple perspectives as a dedication to the subject broadens the perspectives. Inclusivity is usually approached as a special topic – we see it as a topic that pervades all areas and permeates all works and forms of articulation.

It would therefore be much appreciated if you would put us in touch with such individuals, groups, or places that exist in your ecosystems. Reading and viewing materials of course also welcomed. Please send to Fred and Ayse.

Sustainability

Sustainability in documenta fifteen is understood beyond “green”. It encompasses the longevity of practices, therefore economy, ecology and touches human and non-human actors. The main question is how to use documenta fifteen to support lumbung members’ sustained practice respectively?

On waste and ecology, issues that lumbung members bring will form the content of documenta fifteen. On the other hand, the design and production of documenta fifteen should be pushed into what ruangrupa understood as “exhibition without waste”. The life cycles of materials become a driving force of decisions made in this department while audit for the environmental footprint of documenta fifteen and Lumbung initiative in general should be constantly done. From gGmbH, strategies such as strictly using sustainable papers and carbon credit systems to work with Indonesian reforestation initiatives through FIXER/Lumbung Indonesia has been started. Can you think of more practical strategies for this matter? And Therefore a platform will be built that anyone of you can join and share strategies and build kind of scenario to working together in this issues, this platform planned to be realized in the ruruHaus soon. Get in touch with Farid nd Iswanto to join.

ruruHaus

Initiatives and groups are invited along the sites of Kassel and the possible venues and beyond. In this way we intend to activate places. The focus is on the following areas: the center/city center (the neighborhood to the Fridericianum and ruruHaus), along the Fulda (in the Unterneustadt we find a community that is open, here there are different developments in the context of self-sufficiency and ecological agriculture), the east (with large industrial, empty industrial buildings, the community is mixed) and the Nordstadt (is also an industrial location with active large corporations. As in the East, the percentage of immigrants is high. It is also the district with the most young people). The neighborhood Südstadt is also interesting because it is the catchment area of the art students and the art academy is a very interesting institution.

For the first group of the Kassel Lumbung we invited initiatives that are from these districts but also work in other districts. They were concerned with urban gardening and the edible city, leisure activities for children in public spaces, exhibitions, and a meeting place for young people, a collective that emerged from the art academy or a group of artists running up a publishing house with the focus on artistic drawing and comic books.

Soon we will have a Majelis in ruruHaus with the first members. During this meeting with the first 6 members Tokonoma, Essbare Stadt, kmmn_practice, Streetbolzer, Lost & Found and Rotopol the Kassel Lumbung will start to grow. In addition, the ruruhaus becomes a Meydan where groups gather – a place where much will happens and where many things can be made collectively possible. And as well an ecosystem, a laboratory, a melting pot, and a kitchen, with or without recipes to discuss the discourses arises within the documenta fifteen and beyond. Therefore we invite you all to join.

Where is the Art?

Where is the art? Or is it art? Those questions seem very familiar yet critical towards socially engaged art practice that has complex layers of engagement and relations with certain (local) contexts: Many times they don’t fit into the categorisation of the hegemonic platforms and ways of seeing art and its history.

We claim that in lumbung art is rooted in life. If we link art straight to Lumbung and life, then we see art as a form of knowledge production, of sharing and as a storytelling that gives us knowledge and new perspectives. We work with socially oriented art practices, not limited in disciplines or definitions. We want to do instead of to represent, and so sometimes the ‘art’ disappears prompting the above question ‘Where is the Art’?

One question is how do we contextualise those practices so that they are not framed in art historical traditions such as ‘relational aesthetics’, ‘institutional critique’, ‘national representation’. What lasting discourses can we build around the art projects in the exhibition and how? Instead how can we emphasize the socio-historical specificity of aesthetics which might look familiar to art historical traditions? What other discourses are there? This seperation of art and life could also remove and reduce some practices from their active political and social lives into formal artistic and exhibition value.. How could the exhibition provide them an engaged context? These are some of the central and most exciting questions in our curatorial work for documenta fifteen. We are not trying to answer that question or imagining one answer for our different contexts. We would like to set up a group that thinks this through with us and can give input to all lumbung members on this topic. And also to start thinking together of how to create a discourse through different channels. Please put your name on the sign up list WG if you want to join, and also any reading or viewing material in relation to this, or names of others to speak to.

Meydan – a space for sharing (public program)

Meydan means place. In an architectural sense Meydan is part of a public space: Often Meydan are places where people meet, gather, and – often start to demonstrate for a better life. In documenta fifteen Meydan will be a lumbung of knowledge and stories.

The Meydan started already in Kassel in the ruruHaus. Different initiatives and groups are taking part as Kassel lumbung members and as well as other lumbung members having physical and digital locations. Creating a Meydan before the 100 days in 2022 is important, as it is a contact-zone with the already existing networks in Kassel and for nurturing existing and developing relationships with the Kassel based community and initiatives together with the ruruHaus. During the 100 days the different Meydan in the city will be experienced through lecture and performance based storytelling, music festivals, residency projects. Meydan will also function as listening space and readings, talking, assembling for sleeping or for creating something together. Also the interlocal lumbung members will have their own pre-programs in their Meydan in different parts of the world. In doing so, the different locations of the Lumbung members will be connected to Kassel with a networked and multi-diverse conversation.

Some venues will act as living rooms, whereas others will be dedicated for improvised programming by locals, visitors, lumbung members and exhibition participants. The river Fulda is seen as the meeting space for these activities, as rather than being fixed, the flowing water connects places, stories and worlds togethers while changing and flowing continuously. While harvests from the processes and experiences thus far by lumbung members and artists will be heavily present in the program, the majelis; a form of assembling where the lumbung interlokal members discuss and make collective decisions together will take place before and during the 100 days in order to discuss harvests and ways forward for the lumbung interlokal. Some parts will be closed to members only while learning sessions related to what the members need as working groups are open to the public.

Please let us know if you would like to join the working group

think about curating the Meydan out of the lumbung member’s suggested programs in Kassel. Also to think about what Meydan could happen at lumbung members’ locales? And how to include?

Art Mediation

During Documenta 14, around ten thousand guided tours were booked. Both visitors and the institution feel that it is a responsibility to mediate the artworks. While we do not wish to tell people what art should mean, we do recognise that we have to meet and host visitors, and that we would like visitors to feel at home, where they could play both host and visitor simultaneously. Taking lumbung as the principle for the practice of mediation, there is a need to break the hierarchy of the guided tour where the roles are defined in set power dynamics; the one who has the knowledge/language/power to explain, the ignorant visitor-consumer, and the mystical object of art as subject. As hosts the mediators can set the grounds for conversations rather than educational sessions. Storytelling could be used as a form which contextualises and enriches multi layered works rather than ‘explain’, it might also weave a more intimate relationship with guests and artists. Hosts could take on different forms; from all ages, genders, nationalities, to the guests themselves to computer applications which could assist visitors, to the artworks themselves acting as context and facilitators of discussions. What other forms of hosting and ‘educational’ practices could lumbung members contribute with and how would you like to be involved? How can lumbung members also become hosts in Kassel?

LUMBUNG NEWS OF

THE DAY

19 OCTOBER 2020

Dear friends,

In the near future by early 2021—we will soon be launching our lumbung website.

Please take a moment to fill out the survey below before next Monday (26 October 2020).

Your input will guide the working group in understanding better how to build the lumbung website further.

Wishing you all a great week ahead!

The Lumbung Website Working Group: Fernando, Katalin, Matze, Rahmat, Yazan, JJ, Alghorie, Ameng, Reinaart, Sari, Theresa, Andan.