Economy of Means, 25th Gabrovo Biennial of Humor and Satire in Art
Catalog, 2024
In 2013, the Oslo Architecture Triennale, curated by Rotor, surveyed how “sustainability” was articulated through distinct objects.1 The Brundtland Commission report introduced the mushy concept of “sustainable development” to the United Nations in 1987. Oslo Triennale questioned these concepts and underscored that it was an affluent debate. Obviously, in the North and South, and between different economic and social classes, there is no mutual parameter of what may be “enough” or “sufficient.” Sustainability became a vehicle of greenwashing and brought out new marketplaces, and fell way short of its promise of “Our Common Feature.”2
In my practice, I prefer to employ the basic idea of “fundamentals” and work through these notions in setting up or running cultural institutions. Institutions are critical in that they communicate and debate ideas about the state of things, but they should also be places where these ideas are exercised; after all, what use do we have parrhesia if it is not embodied? It is not enough to tell the truth if it is not being declared in a truthful way.
If the future is marked by scarcity, frugal, modest, intimate, and conservative –a term to never let the so-called conservatives claim– ways of acting and working must be developed and propagated today. How to make exhibitions, use walls, manage the air circulation, run the lights, recycle and upcycle materials, and share resources with prudence have to be reworked, but there is more; we have to prioritize and protect relationships and communities that keep us alert and connected, and rethink programs to decide whom we prefer to speak to and speak with. Understanding this necessity is one of the axles that keeps the institution germane.
I realize that some of these principles cannot easily take root in “normal” environments when things are relational and where each institution is in reference to others swimming in the same bowl. Believe me, that bowl is about to crack. If we replace “sufficient” with “basic” the matter is not limited to consumption consciousness or developing tools for a green market. The issue is not only about the material tactical savings of natural cooling systems or solar energy. It is, among other things, about re-weighing priorities, abdicating redundant practices, and communicating accountability. How do we rethink the exhibition apparatus laden with displays of affluence, excess, and power? How do we end the legacies of industrial fairs and theme park museums and take the “show” out of the exhibition?” How to tell stories with prudence? How can the exhibition paradigm be embedded in the climate urgency, not as a seasonal subject but in how we do things?
I never thought of running an institution as if I had ownership of it. I reflexively assumed myself as a caretaker, a protector, which vaguely corresponds to “keeper” in British English, specifically to the duty of preserving collections on behalf of the public. The keepers were shelved in the 2000s as expanded notions of curatorship developed. These often fell far away from taking care, preservation, and guardianship, even if such concepts were embedded in the etymology of cura. In effect, neither the things nor the people who made them were cared for in a seemingly endless scheme of the search for new constructs and exhausting them.
Stewards of institutions often quickly transfer their roles to externalities (read the “funders”), and speak on their behalf rather than the constituencies they serve to which they are accountable. It is commonplace in most organizations for a project, a program to be shaped by external factors to meet the dictates of the underwriters.
I often search for how to do things otherwise, asking fundamental questions and inquire first principles. It requires collectivity but not “common sense.” Common sense is a charade of pre-conceived decisions, risk-free and cyclical practices. I recently watched an interview with Jim Keller. He spoke emphatically about “craftsmanship.” Listening to the world’s best microprocessor engineer talk about his work as craft was revivifying. It rhymed with Marcos Novak, my go-to reference, who had said: “You can look at evolution as fitness which is the sort of an industrial way of understanding it (…)” I subscribe to the idea of craft as a non-mass practice; I know this may be questionable, but I am interested in craft as a way of approaching a problem and molding its precise solution. That solution is unique, it cannot be universal, and the thing itself is context-specific and not transferable. That positional difference is critical because an institution in a certain neighborhood of Cairo and an institution in Hong Kong or Tashkent can’t arrive from the same DNA helix. Auto-colonialism is, however, the typical institutional pattern in many geographies. The arrival of the agency of the wealthy that imagines itself in the crooked mirror of belatedness with its “overdue public” creates delusional and mediocre institutions. They want the same museums, same architects, same designers, same artists, same operative structures, and same advisors. Dorner’s Hanover, Sandberg’s Stedelijk, Barr’s MoMA, Pontus-Hulten’s Pompidou would have never been realized with such a mindset.
As long as you ask the fundamental questions, you are a craftsperson. I am not speaking about a passion for neophiliac innovation, which is wasteful, consuming things and moving on. Therefore, the issue is not a formalist difference, but an approach that prioritizes curiosity. Not just any curiosity, but one with a moral compass.
Many good colleagues opt for programming revisions, which are much needed, critical, and relevant. Still, programs alone do not conduce the institution’s transformation in a concrete and representative sense. There may be many reasons why institutions may not transform, that they may not tolerate adaptability or may not want to change anyway. But, appearing to change is a way of postponing the inevitable and, in effect, stalling it by trying to shift the programs.
It is, in fact, a planetary constellation of institutions that have long recalibrated their priorities, abandoned redundant practices, and communicated accountability in the face of severe crisis. From Beirut to Tashkent, Accra to Lima, different establishments, initiatives, and associations offer compelling alternatives under duress to guide their existence with prudence. In the face of extreme political pressure, slander, populism, and nationalism, they make themselves vital, critical, and contextual. Suppose there is a future, and they may not have the means to persevere. In that case, their cases point to the simple fact they are embedded in the arts for its extended ramifications. Making exhibitions no longer takes precedence. It is about the changing meanings of community, collectivity, and never networking.
- The Belgian collective Rotor collected more than 600 objects, all carrying claims of sustainability, from over 200 architecture offices, companies and environmental organisations across the world and showed them. ↩︎
- “Our Common Future,” also known as the Brundtland Report, was published in 1987. It was about the global search for sustainable development locking in the “environment” to “development.” ↩︎
vasıf kortun 