woven.care
Interactive Installation
Research + Writing
Collaborative work with Perennial Commons – Ryan Leifield and Hasbrouck Miller
Research + Writing
Collaborative work with Perennial Commons – Ryan Leifield and Hasbrouck Miller
Exhibited at the Korean Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, 2021
Exhibited at ARKO Art Center, 2021
Exhibited at ARKO Art Center, 2021
woven.care is the byproduct of an ongoing collective learning effort that began in early 2020. It is a record of the intellectual and moral concerns of its creators over that period; a glossary of events, actions, practices, and objects embodying the principle of commoning and the values of repair, maintenance, and other forms of reproductive labor; and an invitation to participate in that learning.
woven.care braids the intimate and personal with the expansive and social. It recognizes scale and rejects hierarchy. It celebrates already-existing practices that are equitable and horizontal, collective and reciprocal. It asks that we imagine more of and more from these practices.
woven.care is unfinished and meandering. Its form mirrors the rhythm and process of its gestation—through observation, research, and endless conversation.
woven.care acknowledges and values the systems of support that are necessary to the reproduction of life.
woven.care is work grounded in care and imagination.
woven.care braids the intimate and personal with the expansive and social. It recognizes scale and rejects hierarchy. It celebrates already-existing practices that are equitable and horizontal, collective and reciprocal. It asks that we imagine more of and more from these practices.
woven.care is unfinished and meandering. Its form mirrors the rhythm and process of its gestation—through observation, research, and endless conversation.
woven.care acknowledges and values the systems of support that are necessary to the reproduction of life.
woven.care is work grounded in care and imagination.
Over the past few decades, ecologists have demonstrated that older trees within a forest will often transfer water and nutrients through root systems to neighboring younger trees, even to those of different species; that leaf canopies sometimes form microclimates to protect saplings; or that chemical secretions from one tree warding off disease or predators can warn other trees to defend themselves. More resilient, healthier forests tend to be those that encourage communication and cooperation, in part through mycorrhiza, the symbiosis between subterranean fungi and the root networks of plants that, among other things, facilitate chemical warning signals as well as the transfer of sugar, water, and minerals. Pushback to these findings, which has been considerable in certain academic fields, seems to be rooted in a worldview that demands that organisms be considered discrete and self-interested actors within an unforgivingly competitive universe.
We choose to believe that trees, like humans, do not stand alone. Extrapolating from the behavior of arboreal networks provides a model protocol for the maintenance of healthy human communities through the cooperative exchange of resources, including information and labor — a protocol that is predicated on the embrace of gift economies, communalism, and social responsibility.
See also:
Suzanne Simard, et al., “Mycorrhizal networks: Mechanisms, ecology and modelling,” Fungal Biology Reviews vol. 26, 2012: 39-60
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World, Translated by Jane Billinghurst, Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2016.
We choose to believe that trees, like humans, do not stand alone. Extrapolating from the behavior of arboreal networks provides a model protocol for the maintenance of healthy human communities through the cooperative exchange of resources, including information and labor — a protocol that is predicated on the embrace of gift economies, communalism, and social responsibility.
See also:
Suzanne Simard, et al., “Mycorrhizal networks: Mechanisms, ecology and modelling,” Fungal Biology Reviews vol. 26, 2012: 39-60
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World, Translated by Jane Billinghurst, Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2016.
Collective Learning:
Networks of Labor and Care in Architecture
Networks of Labor and Care in Architecture
**Click on the images to explore the rhizome of references**
What does an architecture centered around a theory and an ethics of care look like? Is it possible for architecture as a professional discipline— born of a market-oriented, colonial logic— to restructure itself according to the values of repair, maintenance, and other forms of reproductive labor? Can the architect serve as caregiver?
In the first weeks of 2020, the three of us were invited to participate in the 2020 Venice Biennale under the theme of “Talking Trees”. The beginning of the endeavor found all of us employed in full time jobs in architecture, urban design, and museum work, embedded in the existing, rigid system of production and trying to survive within the softer enclosures of the socio-economic neoliberal apparatus. Our conversations were shaped by the disappointment and dissent we felt toward the exploitative models of work we chafed against in our professional lives. Our research was driven by our need to engage with alternative modes of working, knowing, and existing. We began by reading widely.
“Until quite recently no one seriously explored the possibility that plants might ‘speak’ to one another…. There is now compelling evidence that our elders were right—the trees are talking to one another…. There is something like a mycorrhizal network that unites us, an unseen connection of history and family and responsibility to both our ancestors and our children.” (Kimmerer, 2013)
There were innumerable, branching possibilities that the theme “talking trees” offered, but one direction resonated with us most: considering the tree as a member of an interconnected and interrelated network. We found that over the past few decades in the West, ecologists demonstrated that older trees within a forest will often transfer water and nutrients through root systems to neighboring younger trees, even to those of different species; that leaf canopies sometimes form microclimates to protect saplings; or that chemical secretions from one tree warding off disease or predators can warn other trees to defend themselves (Simard, et. al., 2012; Wohlleben, 2016). More resilient, healthier forests tend to be those that encourage communication and cooperation. Pushback to these findings, which has been considerable in certain academic fields, seems to be rooted in a worldview that demands that organisms be considered discrete and self-interested actors within an unforgivingly competitive universe. We are not forestry experts, yet we choose to believe that trees, like humans, do not stand alone. Unsurprisingly, strands of this basic idea have existed within the collective knowledge of various Indigenous American cultures for generations, where they serve as an explanation or observation of how the natural world works and, therefore, as a normative proposition for how humans ought to act within the world. Extrapolating from the behavior of arboreal networks might then provide a model protocol for the exchange of information and resources among humans — one that is predicated on the embrace of gift economies, communalism, and social responsibility.
“The currency of a gift economy is, at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a “bundle of rights,” whereas in a gift economy property has a “bundle of responsibilities” attached.” (Kimmerer, 2013)
"Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. I accept the gift from the bush and then spread that gift with a dish of berries to my neighbor, who makes a pie to share with his friend, who feels so wealthy in food and friendship that he volunteers at the food pantry. You know how it goes."
—Kimmerer, "The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance," Emergence Magazine, Dec. 2020.
—Kimmerer, "The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance," Emergence Magazine, Dec. 2020.
The pandemic arrived and our working method remained the same: individualized research with periodic video check-ins. Yet as the pandemic unceasingly unfolded and the fabric of our daily lives stretched and frayed, we began to rely on these virtual meetings for comfort, airing anxieties, and making observations on the inadequate support structures in our social and professional lives. The calls evolved into episodes of collective learning, inextricable from the personal support they provided, and in searching for the form this protocol could take within an architectural space, we saw that it existed already among young architects and students. In order to access prohibitively expensive but necessary resources and facilitate propagation of their work and ideas, a collective network of friends and colleagues has evolved into an underground shared economy that is governed by many of the same principles of the forest. When participating in this network, we are commoning enclosed resources, taking care of our community and forming relationships of mutual aid and responsibility with each other.
A model for collective learning began to emerge:
A model for collective learning began to emerge:
We often think of learning as a solitary, individualized pursuit, and we have been conditioned to do so from a young age. The formal system of education that we inherited from the nineteenth century, and the curriculum that it advances, places a premium on individual professional development and achievement. As this system is so firmly embedded within the structure of our society, all too many of us have become convinced that “real” or “useful” learning ends when we leave the classroom.
Alternative models , of course, have always existed even if they go unrecognized. Occasionally they arise spontaneously—as was the case in the creation of this website. As the pandemic unceasingly unfolded and the fabric of our daily lives stretched and frayed, our deadlines to complete this project nevertheless remained and we continued to meet virtually to advance our work. But it was not long before these work meetings became a source of comfort, a forum to air anxieties, to share resources, and eventually to recognize the inadequate support structures in our social and professional lives. The calls evolved into episodes of collective learning, inextricable from the personal support they provided. We acknowledged the ethos of terminal individualism that pervades our discipline—architecture—and the myths of unrestrained genius and uncompromising vision that it sustains. Forming relationships of mutual aid and responsibility to one another through collective learning became a form of commoning enclosed resources—emotional, informational, and social.
Alternative models , of course, have always existed even if they go unrecognized. Occasionally they arise spontaneously—as was the case in the creation of this website. As the pandemic unceasingly unfolded and the fabric of our daily lives stretched and frayed, our deadlines to complete this project nevertheless remained and we continued to meet virtually to advance our work. But it was not long before these work meetings became a source of comfort, a forum to air anxieties, to share resources, and eventually to recognize the inadequate support structures in our social and professional lives. The calls evolved into episodes of collective learning, inextricable from the personal support they provided. We acknowledged the ethos of terminal individualism that pervades our discipline—architecture—and the myths of unrestrained genius and uncompromising vision that it sustains. Forming relationships of mutual aid and responsibility to one another through collective learning became a form of commoning enclosed resources—emotional, informational, and social.
“In order for us to understand the struggle against patriarchy in Kurdistan, it’s important to understand the many layers of violence that many women are confronted with—not only because they are women, but also because they are Kurds. A community that has been rendered vulnerable to all kinds of genocidal state policies, displacement, assimilation. And of course, as peoples of the Middle East—of West Asia—where all kinds of warfare, conflict, is constantly being perpetuated on an international scale. So, in this kind of context, it’s very obvious that any kind of liberation from patriarchy cannot be divorced from struggles also against the state, and against capitalism—and different forms of exploitation, such as colonialism. So, the fact that Kurdish women in particular were really at the heart of multiple conflicts and were experiencing, therefore, several layers of violence and oppression, in a way it’s understandable why the current struggle is also so intersectional on several levels….
There have been strong women in Kurdish history…. But that kind of history of resistance was also often rendered invisible. So what this means is that a very strong commitment to women’s liberation, to the fight against patriarchy, needed to emerge in order for this struggle to be sustainable. Because if we look at ... the history of that region, we can always see how state and patriarchy have always gone hand-in-hand with each other. It’s possible to say there is a pact between the state and the household, as well as the state on the outside, when it comes to the commodification and domination of women’s bodies. So, diferent forms of oppression rely fundamentally on violence against women. On erasing women from society.”
—Dilar Dirik, quoted in Angela Anderson, Three (or more) Ecologies: A Feminist Articulation of Exo-intersectionality – Part I: For the World to Live, Patriarchy Must Die, 2018-19.
There have been strong women in Kurdish history…. But that kind of history of resistance was also often rendered invisible. So what this means is that a very strong commitment to women’s liberation, to the fight against patriarchy, needed to emerge in order for this struggle to be sustainable. Because if we look at ... the history of that region, we can always see how state and patriarchy have always gone hand-in-hand with each other. It’s possible to say there is a pact between the state and the household, as well as the state on the outside, when it comes to the commodification and domination of women’s bodies. So, diferent forms of oppression rely fundamentally on violence against women. On erasing women from society.”
—Dilar Dirik, quoted in Angela Anderson, Three (or more) Ecologies: A Feminist Articulation of Exo-intersectionality – Part I: For the World to Live, Patriarchy Must Die, 2018-19.
As our weekly video calls became open forums for discussions of equitable work practices, we inevitably interwove comparisons of our own experiences with speculative ideals. We acknowledged the ways in which academic programs glorify a “no breaks'' lifestyle and condition students to accept overexertion and exploitation for the sake of pursuing their creative passion, while marginalizing and undervaluing the structures of care required to sustain this ethic. We recognized an ethos of terminal individualism that pervades our discipline--the unrestrained genius, siloed in their obsession with realizing a singular, uncompromising vision.
“Historically, architecture, as we have seen, was at the very center of forming the independent genius-subject. This clearly posited the architect and his work outside of care. Care thinks of subjects“through connectedness with others,” on the ontological level as much as on the political one. [...] While independence, both as a philosophico-political concept and an economic-material reality, has defined the subject position of the architect, the philosophico-political idea of interdependence and the economic-material reality of dependence have shaped the subject positions of care workers.”(Krasny, 2019)
Part One: Personal
I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a wife.
I am a mother. (Random order).
I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking,
renewing, supporting, preserving, etc. Also,
(up to now separately I “do” Art.
Now, I will simply do these maintenance everyday things,
and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art.
I will live in the museum and I customarily do at home with
my husband and my baby, for the duration of the exhibition.
(Right? or if you don’t want me around at night I would
come in every day) and do all these things as public Art
activities: I will sweep and wax the floors, dust everything,
wash the walls (i.e. “floor paintings, dust works, soap-
sculpture, wall-paintings”) cook, invite people to eat,
make agglomerations and dispositions of all functional
refuse.
The exhibition area might look “empty” of art, but it will be
maintained in full public view.
MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK
—Mierle Laderman Ukeles, excerpts from "Manifesto for Maintenance Art, 1969! and proposal for an exhibition 'CARE'," 1969
I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a wife.
I am a mother. (Random order).
I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking,
renewing, supporting, preserving, etc. Also,
(up to now separately I “do” Art.
Now, I will simply do these maintenance everyday things,
and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art.
I will live in the museum and I customarily do at home with
my husband and my baby, for the duration of the exhibition.
(Right? or if you don’t want me around at night I would
come in every day) and do all these things as public Art
activities: I will sweep and wax the floors, dust everything,
wash the walls (i.e. “floor paintings, dust works, soap-
sculpture, wall-paintings”) cook, invite people to eat,
make agglomerations and dispositions of all functional
refuse.
The exhibition area might look “empty” of art, but it will be
maintained in full public view.
MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK
—Mierle Laderman Ukeles, excerpts from "Manifesto for Maintenance Art, 1969! and proposal for an exhibition 'CARE'," 1969
“The Death Instinct (“separation, individuality, Avante-gardepar excellence, to follow one’s own path to death, do your own thing, dynamicchange”) and the Life Instinct (unification, the eternal return, theperpetuation and MAINTENANCE of the species, survival systems and operations,equilibrium”).” (Ukeles, 1969)
Our work is grounded in care and imagination.We acknowledge the systems of support and care that — despite being rendered invisible under a capitalism-promoted ideology of independence — are necessary both for the production of life and the production of knowledge. We allow these systems to surface; we strategize with care and mobilize with imagination, working toward a practice that envisions radical and sustainable alternate futures.
It is unsurprising that this mentality is perpetuated in the professional world, both in the labor practices and in the wages paid. Young employees, who often graduate with exorbitant amounts of debt, expect to be overworked and underpaid and they begrudgingly or proudly accept their precarious work conditions. Advocating for higher pay and a 40 hour work week is antithetical to the ethos of practicing architecture, where the balance of adequate remuneration and the societal benefit of the work is often posited as a zero-sum proposition.
“Architecture isn’t a career, it is a calling!’ What? How had we fallen into the same ideology that Christianity used to make the poor feel blessed for their poverty? How could architecture have become so completely deaf to the labor discourse that it could so unselfconsciously subscribe to the honor of labor exploitation?” (Deamer, 2015)
A practice that is equitable and horizontal. Rather than reproducing structural inequalities and hierarchies that pervade our current socio-economic and academic system, we seek to distribute power horizontally, share knowledge and perform in collectivity, by forming reciprocal relations of rights and responsibilities. The horizontal distribution of power allows for equal access to participation and decision-making, but it extends beyond the limits of the group, to the humans and other-than-humans to whom we are bound and connected.
"Rethinking the nature of practice in small firms is part of a broader need to reconsider the value of cooperation, cooperatives, and cooperativization in cities more broadly. The Architecture Lobby wants to facilitate this by viewing small firms in tandem with the social, economic, and political potentials offered by a cooperative network that leverages economies of scale, consolidates power, and expands collective professional and political capabilities. On the one hand, the cooperative network can leverage economies of scale by centralizing much of the business operations and in turn helping member firms reduce cost and risk. On the other hand, the cooperative network serves as a knowledge and trade network for small firms to help one another. By meaningfully sharing costs systems, labor, knowledge, benefits, and optimal surplus revenue, members build resilience that allows a firm to take large control of the direction of their firms and the projects it wants to pursue."
—The Architecture Lobby, "Toward a cooperative network of small architecture practices," The Architect's Newspaper, Feb. 24, 2020.
—The Architecture Lobby, "Toward a cooperative network of small architecture practices," The Architect's Newspaper, Feb. 24, 2020.
Architectural work outside of professional firms operates within this logic as well. The international biennale circuit is an extension of the dominant pedagogical and professional system undergirded by free labor, which values result over process and innovation over wellbeing. Maintaining the invisibility of labor permits the continued fetishization of the architectural object whose meaning and agency is fixed upon an arbitrary market value. An architecture that is predicated on subjugation and exploitation will only perpetuate those values inits output. Instead, reproductive labor (from housework and childcare to infrastructure maintenance and repair) needs to be recognized as central to the production and reproduction of the commons.
“No common is possible unless we refuse to base our life and ourreproduction on the suffering of others, unless we refuse to see ourselves asseparate from them.” (Federici, 2019)
For the past several decades, residents and neighbors of the small island of Koh Paen, in Cambodia, gathered together at the beginning of the dry season to construct a 1.5-kilometer-long bamboo bridge across the Mekong River, connecting them to the town of Kampong Cham. The bridge, which accommodated foot traffic and small vehicles, was dismantled at the start of the rainy season, when the river currents strengthened and threatened to wash away the structure. The bamboo elements were either stored for reuse the next year or were incorporated into other local buildings. The bridge allowed people and goods to circulate; supported the local laborers who constructed it, through tolls; and served as a quasi-public community space, a gathering point for fishermen and swimmers alike. Yet the annual ritual of assembly and disassembly was also an act of communal maintenance and repair, both physical and social. Old and degraded components of the bridge were continually removed and replaced, keeping the entire structure usable, just as the townspeople shared a deeper connection to the infrastructure and the rhythms of the local climate that helped to bind and define their community. In 2017, with the completion of a permanent, government-owned concrete bridge upstream—a seemingly inevitable improvement in reliability, circulation, and access—the town was liberated from the yearly labor of making and unmaking. Despite such easily quantifiable gains, however, questions about what the community has lost remain.
As we reflect on our role within the structures of professionalized architecture, we inevitably also question the ramifications of our work within the biennale economy. Does sustaining a system that depends on our free labor further undermine its value and the possibility of building equitable work structures in the future?
It is because of questions like these that we have described the contours and direction of our collaboration over the past year. In doing so we attempt to claim our own framework and agency by exposing the process of mutual care and collective learning that took place between us.
The collaborative educational process that we have inhabited over the past year is a distillation of the ways in which all learning takes place, in which objectives and priorities are constantly shifting, in which the idea of “completion” is rarely sought or achieved, and in which moments of levity, anxiety, and insight arrive unexpectedly, occasionally in sudden flashes and, at other times, slowly and furtively.
It is because of questions like these that we have described the contours and direction of our collaboration over the past year. In doing so we attempt to claim our own framework and agency by exposing the process of mutual care and collective learning that took place between us.
The collaborative educational process that we have inhabited over the past year is a distillation of the ways in which all learning takes place, in which objectives and priorities are constantly shifting, in which the idea of “completion” is rarely sought or achieved, and in which moments of levity, anxiety, and insight arrive unexpectedly, occasionally in sudden flashes and, at other times, slowly and furtively.
We work to do away with the current structuring of practice and learning around the manufactured scarcity of material wealth and we re-imagine an architectural environment centered on an ethics of care, where collaboration becomes a form of meaningful sustenance, of bonding and connecting to others. We work to sustain a space for recognizing each other, becoming recognizable and, through acts of experimentation, arriving at a common vernacular. We iterate on this vernacular by gathering, reading, making connections, arranging and rearranging, on our pathway to find a collective voice and to construct meaning together.
Bibliography
Akbulut, B. (2017,February 2). Carework as Commons: Towards a Feminist Degrowth Agenda. Resilience. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-02-02/carework-as-commons-towards-a-feminist-degrowth-agenda/
Deamer, P. (2016). Introduction. In P. Deamer (Ed.), The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design. Bloomsbury Academic.
Federici, S. (2019). Women, Reproduction, and the Commons. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 118(4), 711-724.
Gibson-Graham, J.K., Cameron, J., & Healy S. (2016). Commoning as a postcapitalist politics. In A. Amin & P. Howell (Eds.), Releasing the Commons: Rethinking the Futures of the Commons (pp. 192-212). Routledge.
Gu, J. Y. (2020). Formats of Care. Log, 48, 67-74.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
Krasny, E. (2019). Architecture and Care. In A. Fitz & E. Krasny (Eds.), Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (pp. 33-41). MIT Press.
Simard, S. W., et. al.(2012). Mycorrhizal networks: Mechanisms, ecology and modeling. Fungal Biology Reviews, 26, 39-60.
Tronto, J. (1995). Care as a Basis for Radical Political Judgments. Hypatia, 10(2),141-149.
Tronto, J. & Fisher,B. (1990). Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring. In E. Abel & M. Nelson(Eds.), Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives (pp. 35-62).SUNY Press.
Ukuleles, M. L. (1969). Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! Proposal for an exhibition: “CARE”.
Wohlleben, P. (2016). The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from aSecret World. (J. Billinghurst, Trans.). Greystone Books. (Original workpublished 2015)
Akbulut, B. (2017,February 2). Carework as Commons: Towards a Feminist Degrowth Agenda. Resilience. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-02-02/carework-as-commons-towards-a-feminist-degrowth-agenda/
Deamer, P. (2016). Introduction. In P. Deamer (Ed.), The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design. Bloomsbury Academic.
Federici, S. (2019). Women, Reproduction, and the Commons. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 118(4), 711-724.
Gibson-Graham, J.K., Cameron, J., & Healy S. (2016). Commoning as a postcapitalist politics. In A. Amin & P. Howell (Eds.), Releasing the Commons: Rethinking the Futures of the Commons (pp. 192-212). Routledge.
Gu, J. Y. (2020). Formats of Care. Log, 48, 67-74.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
Krasny, E. (2019). Architecture and Care. In A. Fitz & E. Krasny (Eds.), Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (pp. 33-41). MIT Press.
Simard, S. W., et. al.(2012). Mycorrhizal networks: Mechanisms, ecology and modeling. Fungal Biology Reviews, 26, 39-60.
Tronto, J. (1995). Care as a Basis for Radical Political Judgments. Hypatia, 10(2),141-149.
Tronto, J. & Fisher,B. (1990). Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring. In E. Abel & M. Nelson(Eds.), Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives (pp. 35-62).SUNY Press.
Ukuleles, M. L. (1969). Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! Proposal for an exhibition: “CARE”.
Wohlleben, P. (2016). The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from aSecret World. (J. Billinghurst, Trans.). Greystone Books. (Original workpublished 2015)