REVISION

In todays world, it often seems difficult to find something to believe in, with new technologies and societal trends focusing the individual ever more on optimization and the material. Many especially in the western world are longing for certainty away from certainty, something that comforts in times of uncertainty and was traditionally offered by religion. This session explores the what we communicate today about the unseen, the world of spirits, ancient wisdom and supernatural and how these things merge with the world we currently inhabit.

Expert guest in this roundtable included: Rachel Uwa, Jennifer Geacone-Cruz, Joriam Philipe, Jazmin Medrano, Chaveli Sifre Riestra

This roundtable will consider why democracy continues to exist, and why it is the model most countries strive to emulate despite its flaws. We want to consider how we can collaboratively harness our knowledge of game-changing technologies and global systems to burst out of the bubbles we have become trapped in, in order to co-create and update our democratic structures for the 21st century.

How can we create good governance in cooperativesin the blockchain space? And maybe beyond? This is the leading question guiding through this roundtable, which takes a look at real life examples of tech cooperatives (Rchain) and engages into a discussion on how to improve, expand and share the knowledge of alternative governance models enhanced by technology beyond the confining boundaries of the crypto-space.

Blockchain - or Distributed Ledger Technology - has the ability to serve as the backbone for the cognification of the global value chains. In doing so, the gatekeepers of the current flows of sourcing, refinement and distribution around the globe will become obsolete in large parts. Currently we are lacking a coherent concept of how the power and ownership structures of this new world will look like.

Fundamental changes in design are necessary in a world that is experiencing changes at an exponential level. In this topic, we will explore how we can redesign systems to move past just sustainability and begin to design holistically. We will tackle the history of sustainability in design philosophy, what role we play at an individual and systemic level and explore our imagination for the future. We will explore themes around design philosophy, sustainability, our economy and technology.

The proposed Social Sculpture Academy sees the human being as a social artist at the centre of the work to shape a humane and ecologically viable future in which all human and other-than-human beings are respected and valued and connective ways of living and knowing are explored. Drawing on 4 decades of social sculpture and connective practice work in formal institutions and with communities around the world, the Social Sculpture Academy integrates the radical 'education for liberation' work of Paulo Freire, mindfulness work, approaches to ecological justice and sustainability, and Joseph Beuys' 'expanded understanding of art'.The round table will outline how the Social Sculpture Academy will be the hub for a series of globally accessible on and off-line programmes for change-makers round the world and the significance of its roots in social sculpture and connective practice. It will also consider the importance of an intergenerational faculty of creative practitioners, activists and pedagogic enablers with global cross sector experience and the value of it having a base in Berlin.By enabling the development of our capacities for envisioning, thinking together and empathy; by engaging with different ways of knowing, including indigenous knowledge systems such as Ubuntu in Africa, and through exploring connective political, economic and eco-social forms, the Social Sculpture Academy will contribute to the global movement striving to overcome unnecessary suffering and to reconfigure a just, non-exploitative and life enhancing relationship to each other and all life forms.The Social Sculpture Academy seeks social investment as a new start up - working from a base in Berlin - to develop forms of support for its programmes to be scaled out as a commons, and to maximise the substantial experiential and knowledge 'capital' that its faculty can contribute.Social Sculpture practitioners linked to this initiative have been working with projects and people in many countries, including Brazil, India, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Senegal, Palestine, Portugal, Germany and Holland.We look forward to your participation and support in the scaling out and on going development of this rich resource and of creating a base here in Berlin, for what Joseph Beuys described as the 'permanent conference'.