N WIND | 16 Changing Environment by N WIND

2019 November-2020 January | Free magazine

CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

TIME TO PLAY SERIOUSLY! N WIND is a platform for exchanges of creative Northern energy, created by all of us. Free magazine Events People

Changing Environment Time to play seriously! Photography by Rasa Juškevičiūtė rasaj.com Mask by EGYBOY egyboyshop.com

Curated by: Giedrė Stabingytė Greta Milevičiūtė Founders: Giedrė Stabingytė Andrius Skalandis Communication: Kotryna Čalova

Say hi: hello@nwindmag.eu

Styling by Kotryna Balčiūnaitė @katre_ Cover: Titas Vaitkevičius Big thanks to: Petra Praspaliauskaitė Danielė Liepa Bodrijė Povilas Jurgaitis Jorūnė & Egidijus Erminai The magazine is distributed in public places in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and online at issuu.com/n_wind

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ISSN 2424-5895 2019, No. 16 Circulation: 7 000

Design: Greta Janutytė

This issue has been created in partnership with The Nordics, a branding project for Aaland, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden commissioned by The Ministers for Nordic cooperation. thenordics.com #TheNordics Text editing: Anna Reynolds Authors: Eglė E. Murauskaitė, Diāna Ņikitina, Giedrė Stabingytė, Viktoras Bachmetjevas, Paul Emmet, Krists Feldmanis, Linas Bliškevičius, Zane Onckule, Victoria Dias, Polina Lyapustina, Goda Raibytė, Karolis Vyšniauskas, Kotryna Čalova, Indrė Valantinaitė, Aistė Jūrė, Emilija Antanavičiūtė, Monika Katkutė.

Advertising and projects: hello@nwindmag.eu Subscribe to N WIND: delivery@nwindmag.eu Address: Vilkpėdės 22, LT-03151, Vilnius N WIND magazine provides a forum for original research, articles and reviews. However all the opinions expressed in this publication are the views of the authors, and are not necessarily endorsed by N WIND. Printed in Lithuania Partnering with:

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Young people are the source of a bold new opposition to the inoperative structures that currently govern our world. Their actions are gaining momentum and we grown-ups are playing catch-up. Now, more than ever, maturity means freeing ourselves from the shackles of duty and routine and rediscovering the seriousness we all once had as children at play. Only in this state of creative attentiveness is the spirit able to deliver the ‘sacred No’. The ‘sacred No’ is the utter rejection of all external control and all unexamined values. When a person inhabits this child-like state—immersed in the instant, pulsing with wonder and playfulness, in tune with deep personal truths—then she can express her truest will, he can align with his genuine values, and we can create the reality that serves us best.

Rasa Juškevičiūtė

N WIND 16 cover photographer

Lithuanian artist/photographer Rasa Juškevičiūtė is originally from Vilnius, but currently living in Paris, France. Her work is often multilayered—connecting fashion, fine art, and activism. She is inspired by different subcultures and real life situations. A contributing artist for SHOWstudio, founded by Nick Knight, Rasa has worked with names such as Chanel, Paco Rabanne, Lorde, I-D Vice, L’Officiel France, Vogue US, M le magazine du Monde, Dazed & Confused, Nike, Perks and Mini, Egyboy, and many more.

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg’s recent rejection of a prestigious environmental honor is a manifestation of the truth that our struggling planet does not need any more awards from the sterile abyss of rote duty and ostentatious form. We cannot heal the environment from this mindset. Rather, the world needs creative, productive action from our elected representatives. We must transcend our old ways of thinking and being to create positive change.

Titas Vaitkevičius, Petra Praspaliauskaitė, Danielė Liepa Bodrijė, Povilas Jurgaitis. Photography by Rasa Juškevičiūtė.

Yours, N WIND

Founded in 2010 by identical twins Egy and Remi, EGYBOY is a Lithuanian conceptual art and fashion brand straddling Paris and Vilnius. EGYBOY uses bold graphics, catchy wordplay to create detailed, quality products that combine an edgy sense of humour with an easy-going aesthetic. EGYBOY has an international following, with stockists in Europe, Asia, the US, and on the internet. In November 2018, EGYBOY held their first “ASShibition” in Paris, titled Enjoy the Game. What is Egyboy’s message? JUMP JUMP JUMP FOR JOY!!! How much of a child are you? I wonder how much of an adult I am :) Who does the future belong to? The future is NOW or NEVER! @egyboy_art_cowboy

How much important is it for you to keep playing? I believe if you consider every project, or even our lives, as something of a play situation (with a timeframe and certain rules—the basis for every game) it makes everything more fun and collaborative, and it adds motivation and productivity. Who owns the future? Empathy, care, love, harmony, healing energies, collaboration. Or maybe bacteria, seaweed, fungi, and aliens. Maybe all of these together. @rasaj

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EGYBOY

N WIND 16 Art Directors

I believe that rewarding empathy could change things. Our early education rewards for particular results, for our individual achievements—we get marks in school as individuals, we learn to fight for ourselves, to compete against each other. What if the greatest achievement would be to help each other and maintain peace and balance in the community? We should reward people and communities that maintain healthy relationships within society, who maintain balance. Unfortunately, doctors and teachers are still paid far too little in Lithuania.

This is an entirely new game! We invite you to play together with us.

Rasa, what could be changed to make the world a better place?

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N WIND x Essay x Eglė E. Murauskaitė

Author Eglė E. Murauskaitė

Aside from the number of videos of seal pup and baby polar bear misery you are willing to stomach, or your tolerance for waves of extreme heat and cold, climate change and our collective response to it has broader socio-political and security implications—most of which have to do with our deep inclination to divide the world into us and them.

In Lithuania, many still laughably welcome global warming, keen to extend the pleasant summer months. Yet, Lithuania’s climate is among the most impacted in Europe, with the number of record-hot days rising every year affecting crop harvests, livestock and fisheries, and forest fires much more than the oblivious holidaymakers realise. The Baltic Sea is already among the most polluted in the world, mostly due to poor wastewater treatment and farm fertilizers. I learned that most sushi and fish restaurants in the country import foreigncaught fish, since local stock no longer meets quality standards. On a sailing trip through the raging Baltic waves, I see on the captain’s charts large areas clearly marked as off-limits because of swaths of explosives, chemical weapons, and mines buried in the Gotland Basin by the Germans after WWII, as well as the Soviets. Since the late nineties, Polish, Danish, and Latvian fishing trawlers have had run-ins with poisonous chemicals surfacing in their nets. How long before the salty water works its way through the rusting metal? The end of beach holidays on the Curonian Spit is the least of our problems.

The causes and proposed solutions to the climate dilemma seem to have strikingly different effects on the ‘West and the rest’ and, as China and India are catching up in terms of economic wealth, also on the haves and have-nots. In negotiations regarding the reduction of carbon emissions, the blame narrative is frequently bandied about: The West argues that developing countries ought to lead the way as they are currently using the least energy-efficient power sources. The developing countries argue that the West had a 200-year head start during which the Industrial revolution and slave labour helped propel the Western economic advancements at the expense of their colonies in the so-called Global South. Moreover, many of the measures adopted to date in the U.S. and Europe to curb carbon emissions (including global carbon trade quotas) have relied significantly on shifting cheap (often coal-powered) production to the developing world—meaning poorer nations end up with both polluted air and punitive measures. In the midst of this you-first blame game, there is also a ‘middle ground’, which is popular in Lithuania: The argument that it’s the big countries or big polluters who ought to make changes, and that whatever we do here won’t matter anyway, so we might as well continue with business as usual. Besides, we have ‘more urgent’ problems such as pensions and a low standard of living. It makes me wonder how much pension size will matter if there is no more breathable air available for the grandmothers, or for anyone else.

No place is immune to these extreme changes in weather patterns. Back when I was living in DC in 2014–15 and regularly commuting to Virginia and Maryland, I distinctly recall emergency snowstorm conditions when we’d have to shovel the doorway every 2–3 hours or risk being trapped inside, with roads inaccessible for several days at a time, and some places cut off from electricity. Last September, I was invited to an academic conference in Yosemite that had to be moved to different location as raging wildfires and billowing smoke had turned a wide radius around the original location unsafe. On my evening Netflix break, the Planet Earth

In addition to the ethics of historical justice and retribution coded within these questions, there are direct quality of life implications for regions designated as worthy sanctuaries versus backwater wastelands. In her book This Changes Everything Naomi Klein eerily reflects on some of the technological solutions under consideration to slow down or reduce the effects of global warming—from spraying sulphate into the atmosphere to depositing iron particles in the oceans. The side effects include inevitable drastic reductions in rainfall, and the subsequent degradation of air and water quality in certain areas of the world, depending where

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This year the British press has collectively shifted to calling our situation a climate emergency, while Lithuania has gained notoriety as one of the last holdouts in the EU’s May talks on stricter emissions control measures ahead of the UN summit [the article was submitted in summer –Ed.]. Loyally standing by Poland—home to 33 of Europe’s 50 most polluted cities—Lithuania has been willing to trade its international stance on climate quite carelessly. The issue has been seen as too distant geographically, not so urgent financially, and as mostly an ethical question anyway—and it is high time to engage in a meaningful social dialogue contextualized within the broader political and security implications.

More responsible consumption habits are slowly making their way to Lithuania and the Baltics: from wealthy hipsters who buy vegan lunches and carry reusable cotton bags, to the rural poor who have no choice but to eat their homegrown vegetables and wear second-hand clothes. The many eco-friendly start-ups we have and the fact that in 2018 Lithuania had the highest rate of plastic recycling in Europe (nearly 75%) may be indicative of growing sense of responsibility among consumers. But the broader discourse about the impact of climate change on people’s wealth and health, and the potentially radical alliance choices that may soon be forced upon us have somehow not made it into the local psyche. Policy makers cite acute social problems as the number one priority, which does not currently permit the Lithuanian public to shift its attention to climate matters.

Photography by Eglė E. Murauskaitė. Illustration by EGYBOY

In 2019 spring–summer the stint at the Baltic seaside has been a hot-cold rollercoaster of extremes, with temperatures dropping or rising up to 10° C overnight. Sitting outside my house, I ponder with curiosity and anxiety—what about next year, and the one after that?

documentary series vividly showed me the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, where in 2009 I snorkelled with excitement and fascination, now turning white and lifeless due to rising temperatures and ocean acidification. Climate change is here and everywhere, and it’s been this way for a while.

these measures are deployed. Here again the inclination seems to pick certain sacrificial zones to save the rest of the world—yet North America or Western Europe never seems to be under serious consideration, it is mostly Africa or South Asia the great deciders are inclined to do away with. Klein also reminds her readers that while some may have heard anecdotes of Soviet aircraft scattering clouds before parade days to guarantee sunny weather, we should remember that during the Cold War climate manipulation was seriously considered a weapon by both American and Soviet scientists. Ideas such as spraying coloured pigments on ice caps to melt them and cause floods and decimating the enemy’s harvest through artificially induced droughts or monsoons were considered next generation stealth weapons of mass destruction after the atomic bomb. It seems hard enough to convince people to shift their attitudes and look for stronger local ties, communities, and frameworks to tackle the issues of today. In the face of the recent migrant—exacerbated by the conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and the tensions in the MENA region—Lithuania actively resisted any European attempts to shoulder the burden collectively, with the us-versus-them rhetoric rearing its ugly head. Do we have any reason to expect a different reaction if this migrant wave was a caused by massive climate-changerelated floods or draught-induced famines? How can we be so confident that we won’t be the ones fleeing and asking for help? More

importantly, despite the current geopolitical climate, we are still investing relatively little into regional connections, hoping the U.S. will save the day no matter what. As votes against the U.S. position on the Jerusalem embassy cause great furore in Lithuania, I have yet to hear a single voice even suggesting Lithuania criticise the U.S. policy on climate and carbon emissions. Here again, the Cold War political debates about nuclear deterrence come to mind: when the Western world stood eye to eye with the Soviet world, threatening each other with mutually assured destruction, there were serious questions as to America’s readiness to sacrifice its own to save the lives of European citizens. Namely, if the USSR unleashed a nuclear bomb on, e.g. Vilnius or Berlin, would the U.S. really be ready to do the same to a Russian city—knowing that the next target would then likely be New York or Washington? These questions still ring true. The various European capitals have different levels of faith in the readiness of their allies to sacrifice New York for Vilnius if, for example, defending the latter from Soviet aggression resulted in a nuclear bomb being unleashed upon the former. I also wonder how much confidence we have that our number one ally, if cornered economically and/or politically, won’t decide that the badly polluted Baltic Sea and rapidly rising temperatures in the region have already pushed Eastern European cities beyond saving, prioritising the U.S. if hard choices about our changing climate threatens its security.

Eglė E. Murauskaitė. Photography by Jurga Mižutavičiūtė

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N WIND x Essay x Eglė E. Murauskaitė

Photography by Eglė E. Murauskaitė. Illustration by EGYBOY

Eglė E. Murauskaitė is a senior Non-resident Fellow, ICONS, UMD Senior Non-resident Fellow, Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, Co-author of NYLA Update monthly podcasts.

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N WIND x Playground Cēsis x Diāna Ņikitina

Personal archive of Justīne Kalēja and Roberts Līcis

Author Diāna Ņikitina

OMG! WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CESIS? This story takes place in Cesis. / Cēsis, Latvia.

Photography by Maris Pilats

Our changing environment comes in different shapes and sizes. This story is about people who dare to change the environment— literally—by moving themselves, by planning more liveable cities, and by inspiring others to be more considerate of our environment and our impact on it.

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N WIND x Playground Cēsis x Diāna Ņikitina

The paradox of accelerating by going slower A rather small city of around 18k inhabitants situated 87km away from Riga, the capital of Latvia, turned into branding success, supposedly overnight, and suddenly became the place to which every second family from Riga I met wanted to move. Not long ago, the best shot you could have at having a latenight drink was the local gambling bar. It was also cheap. Now, especially during summer season, even the most fastidious person will find something to their liking in Cesis. Young and not so young locals, newcomers, back-comers, and foreigners have all joined in and are establishing bars, restaurants, hotels, art festivals, underground happenings, and high-class events! Cesis has become home to the democratic discussion festival Lampa, the first of its kind in Latvia, not to mention the string of art festivals, concert halls, and ski resort that attract a wide variety of visitors to this quaint Latvian city. More and more enterprises are choosing to

open branches in Cesis, and local freelancers are encouraged to meet and work in coworking spaces (now a wide-spread phenomenon in Riga but not so common outside capital). And so Cesis has become a playground of sorts, where everyone with ideas and ambition can flourish— both slowing down and developing further in the ways that matter. The unemployment rate is around 4% and it seems that now jobs are seeking people, not the other way around. Private investors are coming together to solve the housing problem, and a number of new residential buildings are expected to go up in 2020. This goes in hand with the city’s aim to increase the number of inhabitants in Cesis from 18k to 25k in the next decade. “Social innovator” as a municipal position Several years ago, the municipality of Cesis was confronted with the fact that exactly zero attendants came to a territory planning event. It was a wake-up call. If the city inhabitants can’t be bothered to participate and express their opinions on one of the city’s most important policy planning matters, something has gone wrong. Until now the municipality of Cesis estimates that they reach only 2% of locals with the activities they organise. And they all agree— this is not even close to being ok. In order to change the common refrain: “This isn’t working. Someone should do

something about it (but not us)”, the municipality decided to prepare the ground for civic involvement. “Our aim is not to ask everyone what they think about everything. That would be unrealistic. Our aim is to facilitate having an active and involved society that takes care of the environment we all live in, to give interested people, who are willing to spare the time needed to achieve it, a say in shaping the common good,” says Kārlis Pots, head of communications and client services for the local government. In order to encourage locals to participate, and for new ideas, initiatives, and projects to flow, the municipality has decided to introduce a new position—that of social innovator. They hope this will become a reality in 2020. The person occupying this role will be encouraged to experiment in introducing innovations and boosting public involvement; seeking cooperation locally and internationally, including cooperation with local NGOs; and facilitating a back and forth relationship among public and private bodies in the city; as well as creating a public platform for discussing various matters, e.g. participatory budgeting. The secret to Cesis’ success One of the cornerstones for Cesis’ success is understanding that the common good must be the driving force. Many people are willing to do good in order to achieve a common good. And, as a small city, Cesis has the advantage of

THE PEOPLE OF CESIS The call of nature was especially loud with this couple who spent every weekend outdoors, returning to their Riga apartment smelling like a campfire fireplace and never quite feeling they belonged.

Nature enthusiasts and entrepreneurs

Cesis was the perfect spot for them—situated in the Gauja National Park, minutes away from the forest, their holy place. Nature and the great outdoors are an essential part of their working life, as are trekking and outdoor cooking.

Changing the environment by leading by example to cherish nature

The mayor of Cesis is open to new ideas and carrying out initiatives no one else is doing. The proactive innovation now taking place at the municipal level, the promotion of famous locals and events that speak for themselves, new families pouring into the city, its proximity to nature and overall agreeability—all this has put Cesis on the map!

Justine has a strong background in the restaurant business. Her projects include outdoor and rural food events. She is currently working on two projects in Ligatne, a small town very close to Cesis, in cooperation with well-known Latvian chef Ēriks Dreibants. One is a happening inviting people to go out into nature and explore local flavours. The other is a creative workshop for chefs that currently operates as pop-up workshop in a former maternity hospital, soon to be turned into permanent place of hospitality. The aim is to draw attention to slow and mindful degustation of food, and to appreciating the experience of being in nature.

All over Europe small cities are struggling to retain inhabitants, so the municipality of Cesis came to a conclusion: If we don’t want to become a thing of a past, we have to look bravely into the eye of the future. And so far, it seems to be working. The first ZERO WASTE city in Latvia? The municipality is aiming not only to position the city as modern and open to new initiatives, but to take real action to fulfil the promises. Participating in the new zero waste pilot program hand in hand with local businesses, the city wants to set an example and clearly show that “We all are in this together!” Cesis is taking part in pilot project Tīri. Labi. [Clean.Good. or, in a play on words— “pretty good”], which is organised by the association Zaļā Brīvība [Green Freedom]. Over the course of the pilot project the city will explore how to implement Zero Waste systems and waste management more efficiently and in a more sustainable manner in the local context. The project includes both educational and practical aspects, including incorporating good waste practices into managing their political documents to reduce non-recyclable waste. This aspect will be assessed when measuring the success of the project at the end of 2019. For the time being, Zero Waste is not the end goal as the city intends to grow, which will inevitably mean an increase in waste. Still, this initiative will provide a strong foundation for changing perceptions in both households and businesses to diminish waste in the long-term.

Roberts is outdoor education trainer; his approach is learning by doing. He is working on a “ZIP file version” of a house. His aim is to compress all the conveniences of a home into a portable 20 m2 that requires no static communications/ connections. The first prototype is in development and Roberts plans to float it on the lake this winter.

Justīne and Roberts’ Cēsis feeling—peaceful, slow, easy, and sincere. Every day feels like a holiday, there is no big city stress.

As the couple spends a lot of time outdoors, they have come to the conclusion that we should have much more respect for nature. And they are thinking not only of the people who actively do harm but also seemingly harmless nature lovers. Both education and oversight are needed as people are used to simply taking whatever they want from nature; breaking branches, digging up the earth, and gathering fruits and mushrooms, are so widespread that they almost think a special nature tax should be introduced in order to compensate for the damage done to our natural environment. Photography by Andis Arnicans

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A second cornerstone is undeniably the branding work the city has done. Cesis was listed as one of the Top 5 brands in Latvia according to DDB Latvia in 2018. Its branding success stories revolve around the businesses (a ski resort, hotels, arts festivals, restaurants, IT, etc.) and their owners, who do a wonderful job attracting tourists and doing PR/branding outreach to popularize the city. Cesis is also home to one of the first widely-recognised alternative schools in Latvia, which attracts new families. The city is open to welcoming new businesses, facilitating such trends as the coworking space, which is supported by municipality.

Justīne Kalēja, originally from Cesis, and Roberts Līcis, a newcomer

being able to move large, ambitious projects forward quickly in comparison to the capital.

Personal archive of Laura & Andis Arnicāni

And so Cesis has become a playground of sorts, where everyone with ideas and ambition can flourish—both slowing down and developing further in the ways that matter. – Diāna Ņikitina

Co-owners of seekthesimple.com, ambassadors of Zero waste and minimalism

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N WIND x Playground Cēsis x Diāna Ņikitina

Personal archive of Evija Taurene

Changing the environment through encouraging people to change their habits

Laura and Andis’ Cēsis feeling— peaceful, calm, unsaturated. Evija Taurene, a newcomer to Cesis Chief Spatial Planner at Cesis Municipality Changing the environment through better city planning

Evija’s work as a spatial planner has to do with updating the city to be more modern and making things work better, which is funny when you consider that one of the main reasons she moved to Cesis was her interest in medieval history. During her university praxis the municipality offered her a permanent position, and she stayed. This was 4 years ago. Evija is fascinated by the readiness of the local government to seek new initiatives, set modern goals, and implement changes. “I really appreciate the environment here; it is inspiring to know that I can propose new ideas and try them out. My colleagues and I solve problems and carry out projects that makes sense to us.”

Evija’s Cēsis feeling— calmness, love of fresh air, and excitement every time people from all over Latvia stream into city for events.

Her latest big project is related to the outdoors—she is looking for ways to make the streets of Cesis safer and more liveable. “Opinions were polarised during the implementation phase, but the level of overall satisfaction has increased as the central square project was finished and there has been time for things to settle down in everyone’s minds”, says Evija.

Neither Laura nor Andis come from Cesis and they had no strong connection to the place before deciding to move there. Having lived in Amsterdam, Italy, Chile, Hong Kong, Australia, and Mexico, they chose Cesis as their new home. They decided to slow down and take a break from fast-paced city life. Slowing down perfectly corresponds with the professional path they have chosen. Laura and Andis are ambassadors of Zero Waste and Minimal living. A years’ worth of garbage fits into a single jar in their home; they know how to create a capsule wardrobe, how to use the assets they have more efficiently, how to arrange a minimalist home according to what a person actually needs, and how to reduce consumption in the modern world. They write blog and give lectures on these subjects and are now developing a second-hand online shopping platform. Laura and Andis see Cesis as a favourable place for living and growing—starting from the supportive childcare system to the approachability of the municipality. They are pleased to have been successful in upgrading the technical equipment needed thanks to a municipal business support contest. And they emphasise that the municipal staff are responsive and easy to communicate with.

Diāna Ņikitina. Photography by Inga Plume

Laura & Andis Arnicāni, newcomers to Cesis

Diāna Ņikitina is a branding consultant, amateur urbanist, and creator and curator of a virtual co-working space & business platform for freelance moms/women. linkedin: Diana Nikitina

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This summer I opened the door to one of IKEA’s most exciting future playgrounds and a dream for designers tackling future challenges—SPACE10. And you can too! IKEA and SPACE10 future have no secrets and beyond #sharingiscaring—the future is shared. S-h-a-r-e-d.

SPACE10. Photograhy by Hampus Berndtson

Author Giedrė Stabingytė

We don’t really believe in this era of competition, but in collaboration. – Simon Caspersen

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

SPACE10. First Floor. Kitchen. Photography by Kasper Kristoffersen

N WIND x Exploring SPACE10 x Giedrė Stabingytė

SPACE10. Ground Floor. Gallery. Photograhy by Hampus Berndtson.

SPACE10. First Floor. Photography by Hampus Berndtson.

S-h-a-r-e-d. In the buzzing streets of the capitals of the future like New Delhi or in a laid-back Copenhagen playground, or anywhere you are really. Join in, just bring a good question or a good idea when applying to one of the SPACE10 research residencies. Copenhagen’s Kødbyen district, otherwise called the Meatpacking District, certainly has a bloody past. But time and the municipal government have nudged it into becoming the locus of a creative business cluster and an amusement park for grownups—full of alluring venues for fresh seafood, wine and naughtier drinks, trash2treasure and other way around experiences. The part designed by architect Poul Helsøe in 1928, has an egalitarian vibe thanks to its modernist white buildings with signature dark blue window frames. This is where SPACE10 is located. I am here on a dark August evening, having come to scout out the location of the meeting I’ll be going to the next day. It’s mid-week, unfortunately, as my research digs up the place where the “best party place is behind the bar after it closes”, but it’s closed now. There is just a whiff of marihuana in the air, the terraces are brimming with laughter, weird neon signs light up the place, and there are cars circling half empty parking lots—it feels like a playground. After a few turns, I find myself standing in front of the SPACE10 building. Its tiny door has protective metal wires, but the lighted windows allow me to look into a modern café and the lab’s exhibition space for its latest and most ambitious project: The Urban Village Project. The future has no secrets. I will be meeting two of SPACE10’s changemakers, Simon Caspersen, Cofounder and Communications Director, and Jamiee Williams, Architectural Lead. I can’t wait to tell the story of this lab, their story.

LOKAL. Photography by Rory Gardiner.

So, what is SPACE10? It’s often called “IKEA’s external innovation hub”. It’s a research and design lab with the mission to enable a better everyday life for people and for the planet. The vision for SPACE10 echoes that of IKEA with its strategic foresight—any business may be disrupted over the next ten or twenty years, unless it has a vision for the future and sticks to it.

My first encounter with SPACE10 happened while I was reading an SAS inflight magazine: I came across an image of “tomorrow’s meatballs’. It was a visual exploration focused on alternative ingredients and technological innovations—things that need to be considered if we want to address our unsustainable appetite for meat and the explosive demand for more food in the future. This was uncharted gastronomic territory. The Artificial Meatball made of artificial meat grown in a laboratory, the Mighty Powder Ball made of nutrient dense powder, the Crispy Bug Ball made of insects [Yum! –Ed.] —you get the idea. These foods can be found in Future Food Today: A SPACE10 Cookbook, all recipes mastered and tested in the SPACE10 Test Kitchen by Simon Perez. One big theme that Simon and the team are exploring is how we can grow edible plants like microgreens hydroponically, without soil, in basement farms. Could this be the future of “fresh to the table” for restaurants? My favourite project is Sprout—a conversational interface that allows plants to “speak” by relaying information through Google’s voiceassistant platform Google Home. Hey Google, let me talk to my poor fig tree.

Too often futurists and trend forecasters forecast prophecies from their ivory towers, but SPACE10 projects are playful research projects that explore everyday life and are tested by Her Royal Majesty Failure, which takes some balls. This is how they are closing the gap between future trends and real life.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

As Carla Camilla has already shared it openly with Startup Guide, I will let Simon take over with the story of how SPACE10 came into being in just a minute—and it’s quite a story! But let’s take a moment to think about how great it is that large companies and organizations turn to ‘radical’ designers for inspiration and what huge potential this holds for future collaboration!

SPACE10 has (meat)balls!

SPACE10 is working on so many exciting projects! They are conducting thorough research on the ins and outs of shared living through their One Shared House 2030 project. [I used it while working on urbanist concepts with teams of architects. –Ed], Solarville is a working miniature prototype of a neighbourhood completely powered by solar energy, where some households generate their own renewable energy using solar panels while others automatically purchase the excess electricity directly from the producer using blockchain technology. And Conversational Form is another tiny project that could be highly enjoyable and practical already today— it’s an open source tool that turns webforms into conversations by “changing just a few lines of code”.

In a way, the story of SPACE10 begins at Rebel Agency, a small “innovation powerhouse” in Copenhagen that challenges large organizations to develop “radical ideas with the speed, passion, and flexibility of a start-up” by fostering unconventional thinking, an infusion of creatives, fast prototyping, and the creation of environments that can sustain an experimental approach. Carla Camilla Hjort founded Rebel Agency in 2008, and, together with Simon Caspersen and two other cofounders, SPACE10 in 2015. Before that Carla Camilla and Simon were back at Rebel Agency working on a collection for IKEA called Bråkig. It was a furniture collection designed for young people living in small places and proved to be a “massive success”. For the first time in a long time there were long lines outside IKEA stores. Soon they received a call from IKEA’s CEO, who told them, “I want to create a better IKEA for the future. I have no plan and no agenda, but can you just think about that, and if you get an idea of how you can support the mission and vision, please get back to me.”

SPACE10 is fully funded by IKEA but doesn’t take briefs from the mother company. And it works: the initial three-year contract lasted four and half years, was extended for two more, and there is talk of more in the future. The SPACE10 team is free to explore IKEA current core businesses and where that business could move into the future—a shared future. SPACE10 shares everything openly— its research, its projects, and even its code. Their work on playful research projects, future stories, and innovative prototypes that address the future of food, housing, energy, mobility, interfaces, and more. Their places of interest? All across the globe! SPACE10 recently opened a temporary lab in New Delhi.

SPACE10. Tomorrow's Meatball. The Lean Green Algae Ball. Photography by Lukas Renlund.

Space what?

It’s early morning on a soonto-be-hot day in Copenhagen. I am having a perfect espresso at a tiny café close to SPACE10. Behind closed shutters, the meatpacking district is slowly waking up as if it’s trying to hide a major hangover from the blinding sun. (I bump into a closed door, but happily Jamiee arrives a minute later on her bicycle wearing the modern architect’s uniform—a white shirt and black trousers. Her warm personality and sparkling smile make me look forward to our conversation.)

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Exploring SPACE10 x Giedrė Stabingytė

I nervously plot my thirtyminute conversation with Simon Caspersen. Will it be too short or just long enough? Simon Caspersen, Co-founder and Communications Director joins me shortly after I install myself at the SPACE10 café downstairs. His personality reminds me of Marcus Engman, Ex-Head of Design of IKEA and our previous cover—a big creative kid. Simon is warm, sharp, curious, entertaining. But in front of me, in #ikealand, sits a man who has explored realities far more sensitive, fragile, and brutal than future design as a documentary film maker. His last film, Palestine Marathon, came out in 2014. It was about the first-ever marathon organised in Bethlehem, Palestine. The next year, 2015, SPACE10 was launched. I go directly for that point in his life. Giedrė Stabingytė (GS): Your journey looks very interesting. Back in 2014 there were some major developments in your life: your movie about the first-ever marathon in Palestine came out and you started building SPACE 10. Tell us more about this transformative year? Simon Caspersen (SC): I was part of Rebel Agency [Then Art Rebels. –Ed.] where Carla Camilla Hjort and I had been working together designing pieces for

IKEA as one of our projects. Once the designs were submitted, it took a few years to get from prototypes to final production and I really wanted to do documentary films and feature films. Actually, I was in Palestine working on the movie when Carla called me and said “Well, it’s out. It’s a massive success!” [The Bråkig collection. –Ed.]. GS: Rebel Agency presents itself as a small team, yet you work with IKEA. How does that happen? SC: I think IKEA was interested in working with us because our team is much freer and we are strong concept developers, pulling in other talent when needed. You see, so many agencies offer the same project over and over again, no matter what the brief is. But we are not here to talk about that, luckily. GS: Back to your story. SC: When I was doing the movie, I was interested in the lack of the right to free movement in Palestine. In Bethlehem, where the movie was shot, you know they didn’t have the 42 kilometres, so they had to run in loops! Hamas had just refused to let the UN organise the marathon in Gaza because they didn’t want men and women to run together. So, I thought it was quite an interesting story, because the marathon was quite a tangible, concrete project. One the one hand it touched on the lack of freedom of movement for Palestinians, and on the other hand, on the lack of empowerment for women in Palestine. Then Carla phoned me and said: “The CEO of IKEA just gave me a call and he wants us to meet.” And I was like: “That’s so exciting, but I am actually really happy doing films. I don’t know if I’m interested in working for a global company.” GS: I’m trying to imagine you being in that place, with tension all around, and suddenly the beautiful world of design is calling you. SC: Exactly (giggles). Well, I felt I had found my calling, but Carla said: “Let’s just pitch them our dreams. If they say ‘no’, you can go back to being happy. And if they say ‘yes’, then you get a chance to make your change.” So, I said OK. It was actually pretty crazy. I started researching IKEA, as I had only a very superficial view of the company—the stuff that comes in blue

boxes. Diving in I realised that their investments were actually circular. They invest in green energy and use recycled material. I could see that IKEA ensures good working conditions on the ground. And I thought: “I had no idea about this!” Any other company would scream about their accomplishments from the top of their corporate lungs. I was attracted to this humbleness. GS: Isn’t that the Nordic way? You prove yourself by doing and the talk comes afterwards. SC: Probably, but they never really talked about it. And I thought: “Simon, imagine the impact you could actually have working with IKEA.” It’s certainly not a small grassroots movement. GS: More like riding a big wave. SC: Exactly! IKEA is one of the really influential global companies that has the right values. It is also a privately-owned company, meaning that top management doesn’t have to answer to their shareholders. They can actually think long-term and make business decisions based on their values. GS: You often speak about the ‘IKEA concept’. What does it mean for you, personally, and for SPACE10? SC: IKEA has been around for quite some time. From the very beginning their focus has been on creating a better everyday life for as many people as possible. We wondered, what if we explored new ways that IKEA could live up to that vision? Where else could IKEA apply that vision? For instance, architecture could be an interesting next step for IKEA—rethinking how we design, build, finance, and share our future homes, neighbourhoods, and cities. GS: I read that you [The four SPACE10 founders. –Ed.] had a six-hour pitch meeting with IKEA. that you don’t receive briefs from them—I’ve noticed many ask how it actually works? SC: Let’s go back to where you mentioned Nordic values. In Scandinavian societies we have a high level of trust. We built this relationship entirely on trust. We said—we are going to explore your vision, live your values, and see what comes of it without setting strict

One could say, that SPACE10 was never built to last, but to evolve. Our methods, our approach, our projects— they constantly change. – Simon Caspersen SPACE10. Basement. Makery, CNC Machine. Photography by Nikolaj Rohde

SPACE10. Simon Caspersen. Photography by Kasper Kristoffersen

measurements. Neither side had a blueprint for how to do that. Everything was learning by doing. And that required a lot of trust. GS: In one interview Carla Camilla said that SPACE10 has unconventional ways of doing things and likes challenging IKEA. Do you organise this or does it come naturally? SC: Both. We talk a lot about it. One could say that SPACE10 was never built to last, but to evolve. Our methods, our approach, our projects—they change constantly. We don’t have a predefined recipe. And we also evolve in terms of the projects we can take on, in terms of resources, and in the mandate we have in our relationship with IKEA. For instance, there is no way we could actually realise The Urban Village Project. We are a small team and don’t have the necessary competences in real estate development. We would have to have a much bigger team and find out how we set up the process you need for that. In work, at least in ours, you need to embrace change and chaos. And then actually back to where we started, innovation is about a having a new perspective on things. That’s why we are always open and constantly involving new people, not only as collaborators, but other people in general. They challenge us and that gives us new perspectives. Instead of thinking that we have all the answers, we are interested in asking the right questions and finding the answers together. We don’t really believe in this era of competition, but in collaboration. The time of big, creative organisations is ending. If you want to work with the best talents out there, they aren’t sitting in big organisations, they’re in small studios and freelancing. By sharing our projects, we attract people.

Follow SPACE10 at: space10.com @space10_journal

SC: Yes, and I think what separates SPACE10 from other research and development (or rather research) agencies is that we have such a strong focus on storytelling. A lot of the insights we need as a human race are already out there. Playful research is crucial to everything we do. It’s not only about insights, but about the whole story around it.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

GS: I see a lot of your personally in this, even if I don’t know you. As a documentary filmmaker you must have been used to getting very close to people?

SPACE10. The Urban Village Project. Street View. Made by EFFEKT Architects for SPACE10

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Exploring SPACE10 x Giedrė Stabingytė

SPACE10. The Urban Village Project. Components of a home. Made by EFFEKT Architects for SPACE10

Jamiee Williams, the Architectural Lead at SPACE10 joins our table and the conversation shifts to The Urban Village Project, the lab’s most complex and ambitious endeavor. It was launched early this summer during IKEA’s annual Democratic Design Days event. The project involves entirely rethinking the conditions for liveable, sustainable, affordable homes, essentially “rethinking everything”. Together with EFFEKT architects, SPACE10 presented a vision that came disguised as yet another dreamy architectural vision board. It’s not. More than inspiring, the project is very tangible. Or as Simon says, “something that feels as if you could push a button and bring it to life”. The project provides tangible, practical solutions to our housing problems, but what also feels tangible is the heavy presence of existential questions: Why we are lonely in our cities, even though we are surrounded by people? Why do we build homes to profit the few and not for the good of our communities? Why is the prospect of owning home so bleak for so many people? Why are our cities unsustainable? So, what is The Urban Village Project? Architecturally it’s a design for houses built based on standardized modular building systems, utilizing cross-laminated timber—a type of lumber that comes with huge environmental advantages. This prefabricated, mass-produced, flat-packed system could be used to construct everything from town houses to towers, single person homes to spaces several people can share. Sounds very much like something IKEA possibly could do, doesn’t it?

SPACE10. The Urban Village Project. Shared Courtyard View. Made by EFFEKT Architects for SPACE10.

How we choose to evolve our urban areas will define the fate of humanity: we need to almost double the area our cities in just a few decades to house the rising urban population. The Urban Village Project is a distillation of different studies, insights, and thought patterns. It is a concrete concept, cleverly mapped from the chaos, that people can criticize and question. How often do we get the opportunity to say what we think before our cities are built?

We pass by a workshop space where the SPACE10 team prototype their ideas — Heaven! —and go into a room that “used to be a hydroponic farm where we were growing salads for restaurants and eating them”, says Jamiee, smiling. It’s obvious how much she loves working here. She confirms this later in the conversation: “Every day is different; we work on many different projects. I think we all feel we have an important mission, so we take it quite seriously and are grateful for the positions we are lucky to have. But we also love to have fun, so I am happy to go to work every single day!” Before we continue talking about SPACE10 and The Urban Village Project, I ask her to share some of her story.

The power of nice solutions As Simon waves goodbye, Jamiee takes over: “The reason we released the project so early is to get people’s opinions, to understand if this is actually something they resonate with. Is it something people want? We believe there is no point working in a vacuum and then releasing a project after years development if in the end it’s not something people desire or need.” Jamiee believes that to meet the huge coming challenges we need solutions that are nice, not forced: innovative but tangible, radical but realistic and proactive not just reactive. We leave the café and head to an exhibition presenting The Urban Village Project before going down

An air of wonder “I am not Danish, but am trying to get my Danish citizenship very quickly, ha!” she laughs, hinting at the preposterous Brexit. Jamiee grew up in rural Wales “living in the mountains, in the forest, no TV or internet, kind of exploring the world around me on my own.” Curious to discover what was on the other side. There were plenty of destinations and experiences,

and there was also Copenhagen, which she fell in love with. (I can relate to that!) She came— equally as architect and nature lover. “You can go and have a swim ten minutes away!” And she stayed. For a few minutes we ponder what is special about this place. There is a sense of wholeness here. Maybe that’s what creative Danes are bringing to the world—wholeness. Jamiee agrees, but then adds: “You can’t design solutions sitting in a privileged box in Copenhagen.” Getting out of the box means getting out of perfecting what’s already kind of great. The SPACE10 team travels so they can research radically different realities—unlivable deserts and overpacked capitals—and design new visions of the future. Jamiee has an air of wonder. A curious, explorative, and reflective person, she found the working practice of architecture to be too restricting. Having studied architecture at the University of the West of England and the Polytechnic University of Milan, it was in the School of Architecture at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts where she dove into the architecture of persistent transformation. After graduating, Jamiee joined CHART Art Fair, the leading contemporary art fair in the Nordics, and became their Architect & Artistic Programming Manager. While working there she invited SPACE10 to create living architecture for one of the fairs. “And soon I jumped the SPACE10 ship,” she laughs.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

into a basement room where Jamiee shows me the presentation she gave at the launch. The giggly, let’s just pitch our dreams dialogue we were having earlier changes to a warm yet serious conversation. I could sense the depth of Jamiee’s knowledge in relation to the project (even though she is so young!) and understood that I am out of mine here.

SPACE10 and EFFEKT envision it as sustainable, shared living community. “We looked at how we can create new realities that promote a sense of well-being and turn the spaces we inhabit into healthier and happier places —a notion very dear to our hearts here at SPACE10—all while being more affordable and efficient for those that live there,” says Jamiee.

I believe that for the huge challenges that are coming we need solutions that are nice, not forced: innovative but tangible, radical but realistic and proactive not just reactive. – Jamiee Williams

How did The Urban Village project start, I ask? With questions like: “What is going on in the world?” Rapid urbanization, an ageing population, the climate crisis, rising housing prices, mental health issues—the list continues. Falling into the chaos of challenges and solutions, and then starting to see the patterns. “The project kicked-off first with our playful research into shared living. We created an online survey together with the Anton & Irene design studio called One Shared House 2030 to learn what people think about various aspects of co-living. For us, playful research means having a compelling story and a public face people can interact with. It works so well!”

SPACE10. Jamiee William. Photography by Kasper Kristoffersen

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Exploring SPACE10 x Giedrė Stabingytė

More than living together

And although the research began before Jamiee joined SPACE10, she suggested that even though it was a great solution for some problems, the idea of co-living was too narrow: it’s a design for reduced private space in exchange for shared facilities, usually for better affordability. But for the challenges SPACE10 is trying to address, Jamiee suggested they use shared living as a design system. That would allow more options for sharing and a greater variety of outcomes. The Urban Village Project cements SPACE10’s vision for future urbanism as shared living. Liveability, Sustainability, Affordability SPACE10 chose to work with EFFEKT architects due to their “similar values”, but also because the solutions they already envisioned for their project ReGen Villages—a model for the development of off-grid, integrated, resilient eco-villages that can power and feed self-reliant families around the world. Think of people living in a settlement where they collect and store rainwater, grow their own food in seasonal gardens, tend an aquaponic farm, reuse waste, produce their own energy—and imagine that the system is also beautifully designed. “Our brief for EFFEKT was essentially: How do you make ReGen Villages for urban areas?” Jamiee reminds me that

SPACE10. The Urban Village Project. A scaleable system. Made by EFFEKT Architects for SPACE10

What’s in the future? For The Urban Village Project? Conversations, collecting and exchanging feedback, and lots of work validating ideas to get it from design to a business model. Trying to understand what the next steps could be. And for Jamiee? Together with her girlfriend she bought a piece of land nestled in a forest and are building a summer house! “My girlfriend and I constantly crave escaping the city and found ourselves borrowing or renting summer houses around Denmark and Sweden quite often. We ended up finding a piece of land between

Explore The Urban Village project at urbanvillageproject.com

SPACE10. The Urban Village Project. Digital Platform – Your Home in Your Pocket – Your Subscriptions and Your Community – SPACE10 + Norgram

Giedrė Stabingytė is cofounder of N WIND and most like the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief. She is also cofounder of Black Swan Brands branding bureau, bringing strategic insight and vision to brands that reach out to people from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Japan. You can reach Giedrė at hello@nwindmag.eu or follow her visual explorations @giedre_anna.

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What about affordability? EFFEKT took “The Right to Dwell”—a manifesto for an affordable city, an investigation of urban development in Copenhagen and how, why and who has the capacity to inhabit the city. “We hired an expert to dig into and almost picked apart all the research the authors did and figured out how to reduce costs at each stage. For example: Can you rent land it instead of buying it? Can you own it cooperatively with the municipality? And we also really challenged profit-driven urban planning conducted in negotiation with real estate developers.

The Urban Village Project cements SPACE10 vision for future urbanism as shared living.

Liveability, Sustainability, and Affordability are the three pillars of The Urban Village Project. From its beautiful vision of cross-generational, shared living communities at the hearts of our cities, to imagining cities built from wood. “I am a big fan of concrete, aesthetically,” smiles Jamiee. “But cross-laminated timber outperforms concrete and steel on multiple levels. And it’s better for our wellbeing.” Building this way also unlocks many possibilities for innovation. Though she admits people are weary of building from wood. But just because it is made of wood doesn’t mean the building is flammable—the tests done on cross-laminated timber actually suggest otherwise, and unlike steel remains structurally stable when subjected to high temperatures.

a lake and the sea, about an hour away from Copenhagen. The first thing we decided was to get architects on board. Without any discussion or doubt, Lenschow & Pihlmann were our first choice. Not only are they good friends of mine but their work speaks for itself, with a strong sense of materiality, detail, and respect for context and surroundings. They have just been shortlisted for the Architectural Review’s Emerging Architects Award for 2019 and we trust them completely to create a unique, humble, and robust house we can escape to. I also have a bit of a dream to find funding to support emerging architects, designers, craftsmen/women and artists, so they can use the house as a residency to explore and exhibit their work surrounded by nature. You can follow progress on the house on Instagram: @komorebi_house_in_progress.”

Giedrė Stabingytė. Photography by Linas Masiokas.

architects always retain the right to use their ideas and knowledge in other projects as well.

Author Viktoras Bachmetjevas

WALKABILITY AS LIVABILITY

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Essay x Viktoras Bachmetjevas

The big dilemma for any leaders of a contemporary city is the choice between devoting resources to quality of life or to creating economic opportunities. Should one focus first on providing ample economic space to attract new business ventures and hope that quality of life will take care of itself with improved economic conditions? Or, alternatively, invest in living infrastructure with the hope that this will attract a qualified workforce, which, in turn, will be followed by economic investment?

The problem is especially visible in the “New Europe”, where political change at the end of the 20th century opened new possibilities, but also placed this issue at the core of urban development. My city, Vilnius, is a prime example. Successive mayors have emphasised job creation, which certainly worked. New economic opportunities followed and the city has become a point of attraction for the rest of the country. At the same time, many community protests have been silenced with the same argument: We should see business development as priority, and hope that the spillover will have a positive impact on quality of life; eventually, if not immediately. Although both pathways are possible and, as is often the case, the alternatives are not clear cut, it seems that the latter choice has the advantage of providing a better added value investment and creating a workforce with a higher income. Thus, it seems that prioritising quality of life over an attractive investment climate is a more viable strategy for contemporary cities. The problem, of course, is that quality of life, or livability, is not a straightforward concept. The few global rankings that try to measure cities according to quality of life include such varied criteria as the level of criminality, access to education, and health services. In other words, quality of life seems an attractive proposition in theory yet is difficult to achieve in practice. Improving the investment climate might be not as sustainable in the long term, but at least it provides something concrete to focus on and is, thus, much easier to see progress in.

Thankfully, in his recent book Walkable City: How to Save Downtown America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012) American urbanist Jeff Speck proposes a distilled version of livability. Basing his conclusions on the many urban development projects he has participated in over the years, Speck suggests that if there is one single criterion that is fundamental to the overall quality of living, it is walkability. Get walking right, Speck says, and so much will follow. The city, by its nature, is defined by a lack of space. Ever since humans decided to dwell next to one another, driven by economic benefits, intellectual curiosity, or simply in need of amenities, the question of space— private, shared, communal, public—has been at the core of organising urban living. To live with others is to be in permanent negotiation: dividing, sharing, partitioning the space that is available. This has been somewhat forgotten in the 20th century. The rise of automobiles allowed us to spread far into the suburbs, giving the illusion of unlimited space but simultaneously destroying the fabric of cities and in many cases leaving city centres empty and deserted ghettos. Speck claims that to turn this situation around we have to put walkability back at the core of the urban movement. This does not mean that cars are to be banned—they have their place in the organisation of movement and transit in a contemporary city. His idea is a little bit different. Walkability has to be understood as the primary, basic means of transportation

Get walking right, … and so much will follow. – Viktoras Bachmetjevas

A walkable environment must also be useful. People should be able to actually get somewhere by walking; in other words, most daily needs of city dwellers can be satisfied within walking distance. Walking should also be comfortable. It is remarkable that urban planning has advanced so much in terms of the comfort of car traffic, and yet so little thought has been put into the comfort of the pedestrian. In order to achieve the required level of comfort, Speck suggests reimagining the urban environment as an outdoor living room—things should be (and feel) close at hand rather than somewhere out there in the vastness of the city. Finally, walking should be interesting, which it is if the urban landscape is organised in terms of friendly building façades and signs of humanity.

Camper campaign visual.

If he’s right, Speck’s idea is revolutionary. It provides city leaders with a clear pathway, supplemented by specific benchmarks to measure the path toward a better quality of life in the city. Circumstantial evidence shows that the link between quality of life and walkability is there. Copenhagen—consistently at the top of the list for global rankings in livability—is also one of the most walkable cities on the planet with decades of experience in adapting the urban environment to pedestrians. Vienna, Austria is another good example—there is ample space for pedestrians, cars have their place but are not king, and the friendly and varied building facades create an interesting cityscape. Walkable cities are safer, friendlier, healthier, and more humane. And, it seems, they are the cities of the future.

Viktoras Bachmetjevas is a philosopher at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. He’s written on Kierkegaard, irony, and ethics. Outside of academia, Viktoras is interested in cities and livability. He is the founding president of the Lithuanian Pedestrian Association and also publishes articles in the media on questions of urban life, politics, and culture.

Camper campaign visual.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

Probably the most enduring insight offered by contemporary urbanists is the understanding that for a city to be walkable it is not enough to offer safety. Sure, safety is the minimum prerequisite for a walkable environment and, Speck notes, it must not only be safe but also feel safe. It is not sufficient to create a sidewalk next to a street—one must take into account the width of the sidewalk, the busyness of the street itself, and the speeds at which the cars travel. Sometimes no sidewalk will create safety (e.g. next to a highway), and sometimes it won’t be needed at all and cars will be able to share the same space with pedestrians (e.g. in a narrow old town street). Nevertheless, safety alone is not sufficient to make a place walkable.

Speck formulates four criteria for a walkable environment: Walking must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting.

To make the most of these four aspects of a walkable environment, Speck offers ten criteria. Four for usefulness: put cars in their place; encourage a mixed use environment with residential, retail, and office space; get parking right; and let transit work. Two for safety: protect the pedestrian and welcome bikes. Two for comfort: shape the spaces and plant trees. And two to make the walk interesting: design friendly and unique façades as opposed to accepting a monotonous and boring cityscape and pick your winners—not all zones can be walkable. For example, highways will always remain unfriendly to walking so humanising efforts should be directed elsewhere.

Viktoras Bachmetjevas. Photography by Viktoras Bachmetjevas.

(which it is and always has been), with all the others serving as auxiliary and additional. This simple reorientation puts a walkable environment at the focus of urban design and urbanist thinking.

Author Paul Emmet

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Changing Environment x Paul Emmet

YOUNG ENVIRONMENTALISTSâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; PUTTING OUR BODIES UPON THE WHEELS

The quote is from 21-year-old Mario Savio, speaking during a key moment at UC Berkley in 1962 that fired up the civil rights movement among white students and helped roll back institutionalised racism in 20th century America. Today we have an institutionalised and reckless aggressiveness towards the environment. Prognosis for mankind’s survival on earth seems to diminish daily, with experts predicting that we have anything from 50 years to 12–18 months to fix what we have wrought. With the recent passing of David Koch, billionaire, industrialist, and ‘philanthropist’, focus has increasingly fallen on how some of the world’s mightiest companies have suppressed information on climate change, environmental destruction, and the destabilisation of the ecosystem for their shareholders’ enrichment. With fires raging on all continents, it seems as though things have never been worse. So, what of the next generation? The hippies chanted: “We are the caretakers of the world for the next generation.” Well, now they are about to inherit the world. What do they think?

these issues. The report is an analysis that examines the attitudes of Nordic youth aged 13–30 in relation to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 12. It’s based on 1,211 quantitative survey responses and 17 indepth qualitative interviews with leading young sustainable changemakers in the Nordic countries. We hear from 3 of them here:

The Sustainable Change Makers

It Can Save You Money

Scandinavian countries are widely regarded as world leaders when it comes to embracing sustainability and care for the environment, scoring highly across the board on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). But higher living standards bring greater consumption and therefore have a greater impact on the environment, including the consumption of more resources and the creation of more trash. SDG 12 is Responsible Consumption and Production—promoting resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all scored badly. Kristoffer Ravnabol is an anthropologist working at Naboskab, a Danish environmental consultancy firm that advises on steps towards achieving a circular economy. Their recent report, Nordic Youth as Sustainable Changemakers, contains interviews with young activists, entrepreneurs, and influencers. Kristoffer said he was ‘quite optimistic’ about young people engaging with

26-year-old Tess Waltenburg is from Sweden and has decided to live more sustainably. “In my day to day life I try to think twice and ask myself—do I really need to buy new things all the time?” She also understands that blaming and pointing fingers doesn’t help, so she has become a living example of her philosophy, employing creativity and using her social network to communicate the idea that sustainability can be enjoyable, and that actions such as replacing single-use items with a reusable one, mending things, and using a bicycle can be more healthy and fulfilling. She wants politicians today to look at the problems facing the world as “an opportunity to build a completely new society. Punishing those politicians who resist a more sustainable society. But also rewarding those who want to do it right.” And her advice to young people is to just get started, “swap with friends, fix what you already have. Buy second hand. It can actually be a lot of fun and save you money.”

The Young Voice of Action

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14-year-old Penelope Lea from Norway realised at 8 years old that “everything that loved and appreciated, was all in danger, the hills, the fish, peace…and I will fight for what I love.” Now she is a veteran at talking with businessmen, politicians, participating in actions, panels and debates, writing and organising clean-ups. Penelope has a message of “collaboration and unity...extraordinary actions and extraordinary love’’. Regarding the actions that politicians must take, she recognises that “young people are willing to lower their standard of living…we just want action.”

Penelope Lea. Photography by I. Mausund

“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart— that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

Business As Un-Usual

Tess Waltenburg. Photography by Mathilda Ahlberg

The report states that the main barriers to a more sustainable way of life are not money or lack of information, but rather the lack of sustainable products. The message was clear. The worlds’ politicians and global businesses must take action now with new policies, laws, products, services, and investments to make consumption and production sustainable. It is startling that in some of the world’s most developed countries 47% of the young people surveyed found sustainable living and consumption difficult due to a lack of products and regulation. And hardly surprising that only 16% felt inspired by politicians.

#CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Artiom Poluden

Inspired by the Nordic Youth as Sustainable Changemakers report and 17 young activists we looked around the Baltics for young changemakers and quizzed them on their course of action, and this is what they had to say: The Recycling Industry Must be as Developed as the Manufacturing Industry

Rasmus Erichso. Photograph by Helge Wedel

N WIND x Changing Environment x Paul Emmet

With 30% of the world’s food being thrown out, and even more in some developed countries, 19-year-old Rasmus Erichso from Denmark is focusing on food waste. He began at age 6 by selling on soft drinks that had exceeded their ‘best before’ date—there is an important distinction between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’. He now runs an organisation called Stop Waste Locally. “I saw on facebook that people were looking for somebody to accept excess food so that it would not be thrown out.. and then the supermarkets became interested… today we have 60,000 users on facebook…and we save 9 tonnes of food per day on average.” Rasmus’ goals are raising awareness of food waste and changing the system that produces the waste so one day Stop Waste Locally won’t need to exist. He started the organisation just two years ago, “with no business plan, learning things on the way, realising and adapting to what was right and what was wrong. And that has contributed to the strong position we are in today.” His message for politicians is very clear—“they have to put words into action”.

Artiom Poluden (28) works at Precious Plastic in Lithuania, an organisation that creates tools for using plastic more effectively, making recycling machines, educating people on the benefits of plastic and the unsustainability of single-use plastic, and urging people to shop more carefully. They are creating a community where a real dialogue on plastic has begun for a Zero Waste model embracing circular economy economics. At Precious Plastic we are not only focusing on recycling, we are also focusing on communicating how plastic is not only waste, it can also be a resource. Plastic is a precious material, but people are using plastic packaging that lasts for only one day and then throwing it out. So today plastic has a bad name—its reputation has been damaged by single use plastic. But plastic surrounds us, it’s a good material we use daily. Our goal is to show that it’s a good material and that people can reduce their use of single-use plastics. This is our second year. We have built some recycling machines, prepared educational materials for kids, and have created workshops that introduce plastic facts. Most people don’t know how to identify different types of plastic, so we teach them. The workshops are not only

theoretical but also practical—we demonstrate recycling processes, showing how it can be done without specific hardware. We make our own machines and show how recycling can be done in the home. We want to send the message that recycling can be easy. Plastic lasts for hundreds of years, and when unsorted and mixed no one realises where it goes. We talk about how plastic in landfills can be blown into water and rivers and then into the sea. We stress the importance of sorting. This is stage one of recycling—if we don’t sort, the recycling process breaks down. All plastic can be recycled, but some are not because of the cost. The recycling process has several stages: first sorting, then washing to remove food waste, then shreding and melting and making it into new products. But some plastics are very harmful to human health and produce toxic fumes, so advanced filtering system are needed, and they are expensive. From a cost perspective its often better to produce from new material than to recycle. Everything that goes on with recycling points to the cost. The recycling process must be as developed as the manufacturing process. China is the largest manufacturer on earth, but we all must take responsibly. Buying goods from China means we are stimulating the market to produce more and more goods. People only start responding when they realise they have a problem. In Lithuania we still have clear lakes and beautiful nature, but this year it has become hotter. We want to build a responsible community regarding waste that also involves Zero Waste Lithuania—a group of more than 16,000. People are discussing the problems with the waste now, we want the community to grow and for the information to spread through friends and families. At Precious Plastic our mission is to provide valuable information that will spread and build a community with fresh views about the most important issues of pollution, trash, and technology that will reach into the offices where we work, and into the public sphere. We also share information about government legislation, about local and national changes in policy and laws.

#CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Greta Thunberg x EGYBOY

CUT THE SERIOUS! Artwork by EGYBOY

Clarity, Action, Environment Edgars Dimants (16) is a teenage coach from Latvia, working with young people. After realising that he could do more with his life, he became a “changemaker for other teenagers who want to fulfil their potential”. My inspiration is every teenager around me, I study their behaviour…and think, what would I change in their lives? And I have concluded that teenagers learn best from other teenagers and see that as a big opportunity. I reach out to them through social media, because they are all on social media. But I prefer live speeches, live seminars, because I can give them real knowledge and they can feel my energy. There is a lot of bad news in this life, but I have changed my view so that every single bit of bad news is an opportunity for you to solve the problem. Don’t take it personally. Yes, it’s happening, but how can I solve this problem?

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Changing Environment x Paul Emmet

Edgars Dimants.

Our Inspiration is From Nature No one clicks on good news—that’s business, that’s why companies are showing bad news. But my view on problems is to ask myself how I can solve them... A lot of teenagers want to change the world, to solve all the problems. They are trying to solve everything around them, but they haven’t solved themselves. I think you’ve got to start with yourself. My content is about creating a fulfilling life. The most important thing is taking action and teenagers are afraid of taking action. For example, recently I couldn’t sleep at night because my head was full of business ideas. In the morning I decided to write them down and put them in order—decide what I had to do first to make the business idea into a reality. I really want everyone to start taking action, action, action! Create clarity in your life, get a clear vison about what you want…define what you want…your relationships…your living space… write it down…and take action. I’ve done seminars about three steps: clarity, action, and changing the environment around you and the people around you to make it the best it can be. It’s awesome that we want to save our planet, but first save your garden, your family, and in this way find balance. First make a difference around yourself and on the inside.

Grete Riim (28) is an entrepreneur and the founder of the Estonian natural reed based straw company Suckõrs: This is our first year, and we are trying to understand what this business is. I have done marketing and I’ve studied business, but unless you actually run a business you have no idea what it means to deal with the numbers and the workers, to do the admin and the marketing and to have harmony… I was a marketing specialist, and felt like I didn’t want to do marketing for fashion companies. I could not keep pushing people to buy more. So I moved to Saaremaa and helped my father in his restaurant, where I was a waitress. Then we went to Asia and I saw that the trash problem there is much worse than what you can see here. We saw people using bamboo straws and I thought maybe we could start making those when we came back. But our house here is next to the seaside. It has a lovely sea view, but the overgrown reeds were obscuring it. So, my boyfriend started cutting them down. We found our inspiration in nature. Because we are ‘green from the egg’, waste bothers us. We can’t stand the way we take from the planet without giving anything back. And so the straws came, we realised we had raw material here, the reed. Our trimmer kept breaking—we had to change the wire every 15 minutes. We started cutting reeds and making straws in our garage. After one month we won an Estonian design award, which was a big sign for us… Our friends are very supportive. As time passes more people are opening their minds and understanding what’s going on. They tell me—you’re the reason I sort my waste and don’t use plastic bags. So we are growing together, people are waking up. My opinion is that young people are more conscious now, they know stuff. It’s not just likes on FB.— in my opinion it’s the real thing, not just a fashion. We want to be a zero-waste company. We can make 2 straws from one plant and the plant is 6 feet tall, so we have a lot of waste. That’s why we are developing new products— small plates and cups made from only plant materials, no plastics. We are developing the perfect production. We want to be more effective and use all raw materials in harmony with nature. That will be our biggest challenge for the next few years. Are people ready for reed straws? What will the big companies do? We know the competition will be high—we have a lot to learn.

My Passion is Strong

Laura Rosenthal. Photography by Joonas Sisask

Laura Rosenthal (20) is the environmental specialist in the core organising team at sTARTUp Day. Currently studying IT at the university of Tartu, her eagerness to learn and improve has won her the trust of her team and given her the opportunity to bring new ideas to life. I have volunteered at a lot of festivals and I see more and more that people are trying to become more environmentally friendly when organising events. But I have spoken to organisers and they tell me that it is actually very hard to cooperate with the government, which could make their lives easier. They have to talk to a lot of companies and ask them for help and the government makes it more difficult even though they are supposed to support them with the environment they are working against us not with us.

Festivals think about what to do with the trash but not how can we reduce the amount of trash, how not to make it. So, in Tartu we are focusing on the main area where waste is made—serving food at festivals using single-use plates. My main goal is to use dishes borrowed from friends and family, to use things we already have instead. Washing the dishes involves a lot of logistics but I think it’s the best solution. We try to make as little trash as we can, so we use stuff from previous events that we have in storage. We are mostly volunteers who have few resources and little money, so we are creatively environmentally friendly by accident. I see things that can be changed, and I just decide to do it. If you have ideas about how to fix things, just do it.

Paap Uspenski (28) is a DJ, an islander, and one of the founders and organisers of I Land Sound—a four-day, eco-friendly summer festival that takes on the picturesque islet of Illiku, located off Saaremaa, the biggest island in Estonia. Amidst an astonishingly beautiful landscape, the aim of this festival is to bring people the best that music, art, nature, and being together have to offer. Since its birth in 2017, I Land Sound has valued environmental sustainability highly. In 2019, all their ecofriendly practices were brought together under the banner of ‘I Land Green’, making it the official environmental project of the festival, and in January 2019, I Land Sound was honoured with the ‘Green Action 2018’ acknowledgement at Saaremaa county’s Culture and Tourism Gala. Paap explains the festival’s eco-oriented philosophy: …it comes from how our parents brought us up and taught us here on the island, kids walking around with pockets full of candy paper, they just don’t throw it down, they even pick it up, it’s something which is homegrown, it’s in our DNA. Now we have 5000 people in our hands, a fantasy world where we can do what we want. To see if people can follow us, if they can manage, during these four days…it’s an experiment, but we would like to live like this. We want to show people that it doesn’t matter if it’s a festival or everyday life, we can live more sustainably. There is a lot to do, but

we have to start somewhere. Four years ago, before the first festival I was wondering if there was anything I could do for the environment. Me, as a single person. And now I understand the meaning of the saying: ‘It all starts from you, what you do, and then people follow you.’ Now we have 5000 people and it may be that one third or even one fifth of them follow the ideals we promote. They take the experience home with them and tell their friends. And this has a positive effect. It does matter what you do! You change yourself and then everything else changes around you. We have noticed a big change since the first festival. We wanted to make an environmentally friendly festival, knowing that after the festival there would be a mess. People get drunk and don’t care what they do, and it’s really easy to throw something away. We didn’t have the knowledge then, we were not experts. A few people in the event management team were thinking about this. After seeing all the trash that was left behind, the cigarette butts and empty bottles, we got interested in what happens to the trash. Could we solve the problems? Can we show people that things can be done in another way? These were the first steps. The first year we implemented the reusable cups scheme and then we didn’t have any plastic cups to pick up, but we still had a lot of other trash. We recycled and took all the trash apart and had less to pay for removal.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

I have found my people—those who think like I do. If I look at people in my school where I study IT I am still a freak in some ways, they don’t really see things the way I do. In some way it’s because of how I was taught when I was little. I grew up in an environment where nature and animals were very important and part of our everyday life. I have had these values since I was little and it was very shocking for me that people don’t recycle. I never even realised it was not an option as it’s something my family has always done.

You Need a Strong Backbone

But more and more festivals are doing this, and more and more people are doing this. We have contacts, we have a network of people helping each other out, and each year it gets easier. Although it is difficult, my passion for the environment is still just as strong and it’s not going to change.

Grete Riim

If you want to recycle there isn’t one company that does it—you have to communicate with lots of small companies about every single thing. And then, at the end, you don’t know where the separated trash goes and what happens to it. You are trying to do your best in the dark, but you don’t know what the result is. Explaining to people at festivals how to recycle is difficult, you have to do so much work, then at the end you don’t know if it has done any good.

Paap Uspenski.

Protect. Restore. Fund. And this brings us to Greta Thunberg, an unassuming 15-year-old schoolgirl, disturbed by the images and news of an embattled world she quit school, and who, on 10 August 2018, protested alone outside the Swedish parliament. And something unexpected

happened. Young people had a rallying point and also started to put their bodies upon the wheels. During November 2018 in the UK Extinction Rebellion organised sit-down protests calling for government to take real action on climate change. 6000 people, the majority under 30 years old, sat down in the road blocking five major bridges in central London, disrupting traffic, and getting attention from the media. Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion groups spontaneously popped up around the world. Greta’s protest struck a chord, more than 1.3 million kids walked out of school. And interestingly, a chunk of the media began a campaign of attacks on the little Swede. Today, recent Climate Strikes have attracted more than 6 million people, primarily from richer countries, and this looks set to grow. Protect, Restore and Fund is the new mantra for a generation of changemakers. But after the protests and the outrage, there is a lot of hard work to do. Most challenging is reconciling developed world privilege and excess with developing world economic growth. Young changemakers resourcefulness, ingenuity and determination in northern Europe have an opportunity to shape policy and curb the worst excesses of a resource hungry system, and their success exported and replicated around the world has the potential to uplift and inspire countless millions. Visiting my parents in Malta, I came across a packet of photos of my grandparents, sibling, a young mum and dad , and some snaps of me. Looking at the 12 year old staring back I thought about the world I grew up in, endless countryside, farmyard barns where I climbed the haystacks, camping expeditions in the forests with the scouts, cleaning up the village brook and duckpond from trash, so much nature, but even then starting to slowly become choked by crisp packets and plastic

bags, . The world has rapidly changed in the last 30 years, as have I, but the eyes looking at me are the same, ‘what are you going to do to make the world a better place?’ Greta has achieved an unprecedented visibility, but there are thousands of young change makers in the world today, from Russia to Thailand, some started younger and now are just a few years older than me in that picture, a new generation putting themselves upon the gears, upon the wheels, conscious that they could be the last.

Paul Emmet somewhere in Hong Kong mountainside

N WIND x Changing Environment x Paul Emmet #CHANGINGENVIRONMENT 28

After doing all this work we understood that we could ask people to do it for themselves in future. Why should we clean up after them? The next logical step was to put out different trash cans, but people get drunk at the festival and its dark and people really don’t have enough knowledge about sorting. So we decided to make it very clear—clearly indicate where banana peels, chewing gum, etc. should go. We also made it clear that if we don’t allow items on-site that create trash, there won’t be so much trash. At first people were not very happy when they heard that no foods, drinks, chewing gum, or even medical packaging were allowed in the area. But when you think it through deeply, you realise many of these things don’t need to be brought to the festival. We have gotten to the point that people bring in only what is necessary. I know we are making things hard for people and that there are also other ways—you can be kind, ask nicely, and then be soft with rules, but we are strict in our actions too. We find that our way works—you need to have a strong backbone and to stand for what you believe in, but also explain why you are making those rules, be clear and provide options. If no liquids, including water, are allowed on the festival site, then we need to offer free drinking water. Our strong belief is that you can change things for the better. Maybe if I was 10 years older, I wouldn’t think like that, but I still have this feeling that everything is not fucked and there is still hope for a better tomorrow.

As a child, I was a big fan of the animated Disney movie The Jungle Book, although, differing from Mowgli, felt more like a wolf raised by humans than a human child raised by wolves. Today writing and editing provide me with a modest income. Travelling between Asia and Europe, working as a volunteer with different clean-up groups and Zero Waste organisations; because I clock up the air miles, I like to plant trees and work on organic farms. My favourite places are the island of Saaremaa in Estonia (Ultima Thule), Hong Kong’s Lantau Island, and Bohol and Siargao—islands in the Philippines.

Author Krists Feldmanis

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT 29

Trash doesn’t get rid of itself. With rising fears of global warming and the accumulation of trash leading to biosphere degradation, we wonder: who’s going to fix it?

N WIND x Trash2treasure x Krists Feldmanis

TRASH TO TREASURE: TURNING WASTE INTO WONDERFUL

Upcycling becomes a way of life. It is a mindset, it is a lifestyle and more importantly, it’s a way to improve the world.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Trash2treasure x Krists Feldmanis

– Krists Feldmanis

Three years ago in Berlin, two companies started a movement to transform industrial waste into beautiful objects—Age5, a transformation design agency and social business venture, and Cosnova, Germany’s largest producer of cosmetics, known for its forward-thinking approach and socially responsible policies. They are now turning heads around the world with their unique approach to upcycling. This is the story of Trash2Treasure. Founder of the transformation design agency Age5, Fionn Dobbin, is known for his deep-rooted passion for social business and for MAMMU, another business he founded that empowers stay-at-home mothers in Latvia to earn a living by making luxury scarves. Inspired by the work he had done with Bangladeshi social entrepreneur and banker Muhammad Yunus and on the hunt for his next big project, led Dobbin to create an ‘idea parkour’ in Berlin, at the heart of the city’s style quarter. Age5 set up stations to workshop with renowned design, architecture, and fashion studios of Osko & Deichman, Undplus, LLOT LLOV, and Strohgold. Each studio received different upcycling challenges, from unsold nail polish stock to outdated advertisement banners. The diversity and limitations of the available materials led to a magical spark of creativity. It was here that Cosnova, one of Germany’s social entrepreneurship pioneers, took notice. As a large supplier of cosmetic goods, sold under brand names such as Essence and Catrice, they create a lot of trash. It turned out that Age5 and Cosnova were on the same page—it was time to start doing good!

Can the design potential of waste be paired with industrial production? Could these discarded materials be turned into something beautiful? The most exciting result of the workshop parkour was developed by Berlin-based design studio LLOT LLOV. Their goal was to make use of rejected nail-polish bottles. First the bottles were destroyed, and the resulting debris was added to a concrete mixture to create terrazzo flooring tiles. The glass particles and nail-polish sank to the bottom of the cast-stone slabs and were made visible through polishing. Their experiment was wildly successful! Akin to a magic spell, the trash and concrete concoction made way for a new, colourful interpretation: ‘nail polish terrazzo’. Saved from the bin, the discarded nail polish bottles became a crucial ingredient in this aesthetic wonder. The process of discovery We are now familiar with the idea, but what really happens behind the scenes? Saving the environment and creating beautiful design products can be a daunting task. How does one go from trash to innovation? Start with small steps. The big companies want to know what the outcome will be before committing serious resources, but the main obstacle for any innovative project is that you can’t predict the outcome. ‘It is important to test the ideas in a very strategic manner, so I practice what

LLOT LLOV’s BOB dining table, low table BOBBY as well as the 25/25 lamp are all created with the sustainable terrazzo material.

Prototype or Product?

During the accelerator program, the upcyclers-in-training will receive advice from industry experts and have the use of world-class tools to refine their creations. New wonders will be brought to life with professional support and funding. What’s more, Cosnova will help participants produce, advertise, and market their products, and bring it to fruition.

Age5 uses a design thinking approach when developing products. They cycle rapidly through several prototype iterations, testing along the way to refine their ideas. For creative people, trash can be just another resource for sparking ideas—that much was clear. But how would the trash-to-treasure idea resonate with the public? How would potential consumers react? To discover the answer, Cosnova and Age5 launched a pop-up lab in Milan during Design Week 2019 to feature the benefits of upcycling. The lab held more than 250 workshops and masterclasses, attracting over 2000 designers, local people, and tourists who engaged in developing new ideas for upcycling waste. The results were truly fascinating. The eager up-cyclers were given the chance to showcase their creations. Many curious prototypes were brought to life and the authors of the most inspired ideas were invited to another round of upcycling at Cosnova headquarters in Germany. From Observer to Designer The lucky innovators will be flown to Berlin in 2020 to meet with Cosnova’s social responsibility department. It will be the start

What is the plan for the future? That upcyclers from all corners of the globe can share their experiences and improve the world one idea a time. Many ideas came together during the creative workshop sessions in Berlin. Collaborations among the different designthinkers resulted in unique, sustainable, and environmentally friendly products. This success inspired Age5 and Cosnova to create an open, online platform for up-cycling idea to connect consumers, creatives, and industry experts to find new ways to turn trash into treasure. Data from the Milan lab event is currently being analysed and will soon be available to the public. Dobbin explains: ‘We have just launched our online platform. The next step is to work together with different universities, different partners. That’s how we aim to tackle more waste challenges. During the next phase, there will also be an option for a diverse set of partners to join. We are talking with other people in the industry, and the response has been amazing. Huge

fashion production companies are enthusiastic about the project and the cause. We’ve seen a huge initiative. For instance, they would like to make use of textile leftovers or production byproducts. The project keeps developing. Every step we take right now is carefully planned to ensure maximum environmental impact and make it a global movement. It would not be fun to spoil everything now, but it will certainly be fun for aspiring up-cyclers around the world.’ Creativity: open for all ‘The one thing everybody needs to understand is that you don’t need to be an artist to get involved in T2T. The field is open to everyone. During our first lab in Milan, we had a lot of designers joining, but we also had teachers, people from the universities, craftsmen, and others who were simply interested in developing their ideas about how to upcycle waste from big corporations and turn it into beautiful new products. It’s important to say it again—everyone can join, no matter who you are. Everybody is welcome.’ As he spoke, Fionn showed us pictures of the people who took part in the workshop: builders, shopkeepers, and grocers selling fruit. ‘For them, this was not only a chance to have a creative experience, but a way to help the world by having fun.’ trash2treasure.eu @t2tideas

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

of a new adventure in sustainability and the chance to participate in an upcycling accelerator program and connect with a network of innovators and creatives from around the globe, including the originators of the movement.

I call disciplined creativity. The process of discovery is key to everything we do,’ says Dobbin. Disciplined creativity can encourage big corporations to walk the path of innovation and discovery.

SMELL OF THE NORDIC WIND The Nordic countries have a particularly good reputation in the Baltic region. They are well regarded in the fields of education, social security, and finance. Long-term stability, sustainable progress, avoidance of occupation, and strategic decisions have maintained their forward momentum. This essay has been concluded with the reference of scientific papers, governmental reports and other publications.

However, today’s geopolitical and cultural situation is beginning to highlight less obvious things— deeper and more subtle problems. But it’s not too late to address them. We have not yet crossed the Rubicon but it seems important to discuss some of the things that are bringing us closer to the river.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Black pages x Linas Bliškevičius

East Wind One of the key challenges facing Europe at the moment is the crisis of unity. In this respect, one of the crucial, critical points is our approach to relations with the Russian Federation. The country is seeking to expand its influence and destabilise its neighbours through various soft-power manipulations and hidden nets of influence. Regional powers and allies came together to execute massive international military exercises such as Aurora 2017 and Trident Juncture 2018 in reaction to NATO’s emerging concern about the Great Bear to the east. But Russia understands these actions as a threat in and of themselves and reacted with an indirect threat to prevent Sweden from joining NATO and from cooperating with the alliance in general. This situation calls to mind the Norwegian TV series Occupied (2015-); the plot depicts a course of events where Russia collaborates with the rest of Europe to invade the

Nordic countries to restore oil and gas production that the Norwegians have cut off due to technological innovations. It’s as if certain events from World War II would reoccur, such as allowing foreign powers to invade neighbouring states to avoid conflict or to establish economic partnerships. The Nordic countries have only recently realised that such threats are more than realistic. Given that our eastern neighbour is already ignoring international agreements by blocking GPS signals around the borders of Norway and has been performing obscure operations such as buying islands and installing suspicious structures in Finland, which has drawn the attention of the special forces. This abundance of troubling events is leading many European countries to re-evaluate the prevailing illusions that have allowed them to make the fundamental mistake of believing the Cold War was over. Russia was perceived as having lost its status as an imperial power and willing to gradually integrate into Western culture. But the system has not changed, it has just rebooted. This is why Nordic geopolitical strategy must pay particular attention to rising political tensions, to control of the North Sea, and to the security of state borders. The North must establish a military fortification on the island of Gotland and take control of the Baltic Sea. But the game of power should not end there. It is important to oppose Russian projects such as Astrav NPP— a multireactor nuclear power plant project in Belarus, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline currently under construction from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea [The article has been submitted in summer –Ed.], and the exploitation of Arctic natural resources to prevent imminent (as history and even recent events show) ecological catastrophes. The Nordic countries must embody principled positions rather than flirting with Russia like the other European powers have been doing. The entire Nordic region must become united as never before and must expand its defence policy to include the Baltic region, thus contributing to deterrence throughout the region and to defending the national interests of each individual country and the interests of the region as a whole.

– Karl Popper

Linas Bliškevičius. Photography by Kotryna Almanytė

”In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.”

Linas Bliškevičius is an art historian and theoretician, currently studying at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, he also writes critiques of contemporary art. I am a private person.

Inhaled Air

This example shows that even an advanced society can become violent. Societies by their very nature are fragile and every social, economic, or cultural advancement can be destroyed by its own accomplishments.

Two massive segments are forming—local and foreign—and each has a completely distinct mechanism for achieving consensus, one is based on the long evolution of democratic traditions and Western values, the other is hobbled by strict religious traditions and an authoritarian approach. European policy toward mass immigration continues to be based on the belief that in our advanced societies humanist ideas must not be compromised by internal or external forces. But homegrown populations in the Nordic countries are showing signs of distrust in social change of that magnitude. People are showing signs of fear and marginalised groups are trying to use the situation for political gain. In Finland, members of the Finns Party have begun supporting racist positions and one could see some truth in what they believe. For example: “society begins to play by the rules of the Muslim minority rather than expecting the minority to play by the rules of the society”. This idea is based on a paradox described by Karl Popper: “In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.” Major political groups condemn claims that outbursts of crime are related to immigration despite the fact that society has grown more polarised and debates have become aggressive. In Sweden there is an ambition to control public discourse by prohibiting access documents and databases that reveal the political views, national origin, or religion of convicted persons. Alternative media channels have revealed information tampering by the state due to political correctness. It is a strange type of control—self-censorship by state powers with an ideological agenda. Or perhaps it is simply poor public relations forming a warped public opinion. In this setting, marginal powers can gain popularity by exploiting the distorted picture of reality produced by a lack of information.

The active and synthetic formation of large immigrant community within European countries is starting to cripple local consensus and can unleash the hidden radicalism within societies. If a high percentage of the population is made up of people with traditions that are antagonistic to local customs, a fifth column could arise with the power to sabotage the very core of society. History shows us that when the Europeans came to other lands they didn’t adapt to native traditions. They destroyed them. Today this destruction should be perceived with more subtlety. As western ideals are not present at the core of immigrant societies, western tolerance may well go into decline. Even if we still see the Nordic countries as tolerant and liberal, far-right factions are now being established within all Nordic governments. Racism has become a serious issue because historically all of these countries were homogenous; any foreign groups present were small and controlled. Immigration is now a mass phenomenon—asylum seekers, refugees, and economic migrants are exploiting the political climate and the welfare state. Public consensus about immigration is being reshaped by immigrants who are unable to adapt and integrate and so begin to exploit programmes originally created as social aid for those in short-term trouble. Ghettos are forming and the divisions between social factions are deepening. This could lead to the destabilisation of the political system. The failure of cultural assimilation has encouraged the growth of far-right anti-immigrant parties and movements such as Golden Dawn in Greece, the Swedish Democrats, the National Front in France, and Pegida in Germany. The Charlie Hebdo shooting, the murder of Theo van Gogh, and Islamic terrorism are one thing, but homegrown radical factions with their own political agenda expressed in religion-based values are another. People have become pessimistic because we don’t know what the eventual impact will be, but there is a real possibility that it poses a seriously threat to the structure of Nordic societies and to the rest of Europe as well. The stance adopted on this issue by individual European Union member states has demonstrated great divergence between countries in terms of their understanding of the notion of “solidarity” when it comes to immigration, and this instability is plays right into the hands of the Great Russian Bear.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

Breivik described the reasons for his actions in his manifesto—2083: A European Declaration of Independence—a compendium of texts in which Breivik states his “opposition to Islam” and blames feminism for Europe’s “cultural suicide”. He complained that the information presented in his more than fifteen-hundred-page manifesto is being “deliberately kept away from the European peoples by our governments and the politically correct mainstream media”. He criticises Marxism/multiculturalism in Western Europe, Islamic colonisation and Islamisation, and various other political topics, and provides an ideological deconstruction of Western society and the strange state it now finds itself in. From this historical and quasi-philosophical exposition, he goes into a rather ferocious description of how to execute resistance actions such as killing, bombing, and preparing for a holy war. The “manifesto” is a compilation of many different writings Breivik had copied and interpreted. 90 minutes before the explosion in Oslo, Breivik sent this compendium to more than a thousand e-mail addresses.

Public policy in the Nordic countries is based on a civil model that includes the assimilation of the ethno-nationalist section of the immigrant population. But this idea is naïve. The reason, expressed in an anthropological approach, is simple: Every culture is confined by the boundaries of that culture. Every clash of civilizations results in a differentiation of virtues, values, morals, religions. As these culturally based differences emerge, the groups define themselves according to these differences and by highlighting “otherness”.

The potential for radicalism lies hidden within Nordic societies. A story from 2011 serves as an example: A white car stops at the main entrance to a government building. The driver gets out, stands beside the car for seven seconds, and then walks away. He sits in another nearby parked vehicle for a while, then leaves. The white car explodes next to the office of the Prime Minister. Police rush to the scene, followed by emergency vehicles. All public attention is focused on this dramatic event. Approximately two hours later, a ‘police officer’ shows up at a small island some distance from the action. About 40 minutes after first shot, emergency medical services receive information about the shootings there. The shooter tries to call the police twice to surrender, but hangs up and continues to kill. The emergency responders are delayed but eventually reach the island. Breivik does not resist arrest and is apprehended by the police. He managed to kill 69 participants of the Workers’ Youth League summer camp on the island of Utøya.

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N WIND x Interview x RIBOCA2 Agniya Mirgorodskaya and Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel in RIBOCA office. Photography by Peteris Viksna

Author Zane Onckule

What follows is a transcript of two genuine and generous conversations conducted for this issue of N WIND that explores the theme of our Changing Environment. Both of these conversations touch on the themes of environmental change, the Anthropocene, and mental and artistic climate of Riga’s own biennial, jointly reaching the conclusion that neither RIBOCA nor the city of Riga should ever reach completion (as the old Latvian proverb says), especially as this might result in The End of a World— one of the thematic threads running through RIBOCA 2. Forreal.

Zane Onckule (ZO): This conversation is happening through Skype, an ocean away from the Baltics. I am calling Florida from New York City. Knowing there is a certain relationship between where you are now and the forthcoming RIBOCA 2, I would like to start this conversation by asking: How so? Agniya Mirgorodskaya (AM): Yes, I am now in the North of Florida and this is somehow, interestingly and unexpectedly, entangled with RIBOCA 2. Last October there was a huge hurricane—Michael—that damaged nearly 80% of this coastal town, which used to be a very cosy tourist resort. My husband has started a reconstruction business repairing homes in the area. During the past year, I have spent a lot of time here, coming regularly whenever there is no need for me to be in Riga or when I have trips affiliated with my job. Being here has changed my views and triggered my own crisis in response to the ecological crisis we are having now and has made me look into this more deeply. My interests have also shifted more concretely in this direction because when you are here you see the devastation first-hand. It is very apocalyptic here—houses flipped upside down—there is not much of a civilization left here now. As we are approaching the biennial and knowing what the concept will be, I think there is no better place for me than here to think about this topic. I am reading multiple materials

ZO: Moving towards the core subject of this conversation: How would you describe Riga’s art scene? And what interests you there most apart from your decision to establish the biennial in this city? How do you think the next biennial will change and impact identity of RIBOCA as much as what it will leave in Riga? AM: Riga is an interesting, refreshing, authentic place with a special sentiment in the air and a raw, uncompromising mood. It also seems there is no need to be tuned in to or occupied with attempts to follow trends. Creative individuals and organizations aren’t pushing others to mimic or replicate currently prevailing rhetoric, instead, there is a more genuine approach. For example, many independent initiatives co-exist—the themes they cover are unique and they are dedicated to what they are doing. These are multiple micro-cosmoses, for example, the activities that surround artist Maija Kurševa—her artistic practice, running the non-profit space Low, and being the founder of the Riga Zine Festival, as well as teaching at the Art Academy. Another point of view, which is very close to me, is a connectedness to nature across the region. This re-invented paganism, shamanistic practices, or witchcraft can be observed not only in the mentality of the people, but also in artists’ work. You don’t see it much in other places, besides Sweden perhaps. I would prefer RIBOCA’s identity not to change as the foundation has positive values worth keeping, while of course having multiple iterations allows space for experimentation with content. One crucial aspect is that the artists are provided with every possible tool and given the care they need when they arrive at RIBOCA. We are extremely proud that our alumni-artists share their positive experiences at RIBOCA, which helps raise standards for artists and the commissions they receive. We are also thinking

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

Founded in Riga in 2016, RIBOCA’s immediate success was cemented by the creative vision of the RIBOCA team and Katerina Gregos, chief curator of Everything Was Forever Until it Was No More, the Biennial’s inaugural exhibition-plus. Ahead of its second iteration, which opens in Riga in May 2020, time was spared to sit down and chat—individually and via Skype—with Agniya Mirgorodskaya, RIBOCA’s Founding Director, Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, Chief Curator of the 2nd RIBOCA.

on the ecological crisis and recently watched the movie Chernobyl which in this context, speaks to me in a very powerful way. I thought the film was very thoughtful because, aside from the facts (which were perhaps not entirely accurate), the point of the movie was the general sentiment feeling of the catastrophe... And that was shown very well!

With the growing, who’s-even-stillcounting number of biennials around the world on the one hand, and the belief that “there is no such thing as a Biennale” on the other, the following long read is dedicated to the Rīga International Biennial of Contemporary Art or RIBOCA.

RIBOCA has proven itself to be a positive entity, a positive presence in the city and the region that only makes it richer and more appealing. – Agniya Mirgorodskaya Erik Kessels Chain of Freedom, 2018. Outdoor installation with billboards Commissioned by RIBOCA1 Courtesy of the artist Photo by Ivan Erofeev

about the visitors as much as artists as we don't want the visitor to be disorientated in the space. It is a luxury that Riga is largely walkable and manageable on a human scale. All these things make Riga very special to me and will certainly be highlighted in the exhibition.

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N WIND x Interview x RIBOCA2

ZO: Enjoyment of, engagement in, and support for art practices often leads to collecting. What is your relationship with possessing art? Do you collect art yourself? In one interview you briefly mentioned your interest in installation art while adding that it is a “complicated discipline” to collect. Speculatively, wouldn’t it be less so if you consider RIBOCA to be your collection? Do you have future plans for acquiring works of art? AM: I don’t collect artworks. I might start collecting soon, but until recently I have had a nomadic mentality and don’t like owning things. For me it has felt like a burden of sorts as I kept moving house and until recently I didn’t see myself as someone who could settle down. From this perspective, having a collection of artworks means needing to find a storage solution and all the necessary logistics are more scary than exciting to me. I am more drawn to collecting emotions and experiences, which are not only art. I like to travel and get emotionally charged by other things as well. I do enjoy “collecting” memories from a specific exhibition or artwork that has deeply resonated with me. Nevertheless, I have recently started to like the idea of collecting art because I will soon have a place of my own in Riga and of course I would like to be surrounded with meaningful art that speaks to me. ZO: Let’s talk about the upcoming RIBOCA 2 and the creative force or forces behind it. How did you decide on the new chief curator? What can you share with us now about what will be different and what will continue from where the first biennial left off? AM: It was a very lengthy process and a hard decision to make. RIBOCA has an advisory board comprised of seven people—myself, Katerina Gregos, Kaspars Vanags, Taru Elfving, Frank Lubbers, Maria Rus Bojan, Viktor Misiano—people who are not only well respected in the art world but also share the integrity to work with us. They are deeply involved and caring, but have quite different opinions, which means they do not necessarily speak in one voice. It took us more than six months to decide on the chief curator. We started by discussing what RIBOCA stands for. Each of the

advisors suggested candidates and then we gradually whittled down the list until there were five people left for in-depth conversations and interviews. Several of the shortlisted candidates were asked to submit curatorial concepts for RIBOCA2 and were invited to travel to Riga so we could get to know them personally. We settled on Rebecca because of the excellence of her proposal and how convincing, inspiring, and excited she was for all us. ZO: I would also like to talk about the Baltic dimension of RIBOCA, which might be more “sellable” to outsiders than each individual location. You once said: “I do not want to emphasize “Baltic” as a concept […] by showing artists from these three countries, I want to show how different they really are.” How would you describe the different art scenes in Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn? What excites you about each place in terms of visual culture—art, artists, venues, designers, aesthetics? AM: I understand why the Baltics tend to unite, especially for the outsider, as the region then becomes more “understandable”—one destination with at least three stops. While RIBOCA has also considered this “marketing trick”, we want to acknowledge the significant differences between the countries and their art scenes. Generally, I don’t like to think in such territorial terms. I don’t want to promote a Latvian show or a Lithuanian show… RIBOCA will always include artists from all three Baltic countries, which is a mission of sorts, although it will also largely exist in an international dimension. I am not even particularly interested in detailed future-planning as everything that happens with and within RIBOCA happens rather organically. It is almost like a living organism moving in various directions—at times unplanned, at times planned. What I do hope and wish for the biennial is to open it up in terms of the people and institutional agencies involved, backing us financially and morally. RIBOCA has proven itself to be a positive entity, a positive presence in the city and the region that only makes it richer and more appealing, as much as for the locals as for our guests. ZO: Would you like to see RIBOCA become not only a platform for empowering artists and other producing creatives, but also for raising the visibility of the curators and producers in their own right? Curators

Sputnik Photos Lost Territories Archive, 2008-16 / 2018 Site-specific installation, photographs, torn wallpaper Dimensions variable Commissioned by RIBOCA1 Courtesy of the artist Photo by Ivan Erofeev

ZO: Can you please name some inspiring examples of other biennials or art projects that share some kinship with the RIBOCA concept? They don’t necessarily have to be from the Baltic region, but perhaps have some similarity in their approach or in the challenges they face.

AM: Yes, absolutely! We are thinking about doing site-by-site exhibitions curated by a Latvian or Baltic curator. We are certainly not bound to the territories, also in terms of the chief curator of each of the next RIBOCA iterations. It would be fascinating to have a local curator with in-depth knowledge of the region serving as chief curator. For the first RIBOCA it was important for us to have a wellknown curator with a name that would attract attention and resonate within the art world, but in the future we will not necessarily follow this strategy. We are more interested in finding people with their own identity, who resonate broadly with their ideas and concepts. RIBOCA seeks out curators with original and interesting minds to work with and to support. We already have Riga-based curator Kaspars Vanags on the team, which is amazing as he is sensitive to the local scene and is an incredible advisor.

ZO: My last question is about language/s. How does the decision to use three language— Latvian, Russian, and English—impact RIBOCA? Being situated in the current day Latvia and indirectly echoing the increasing and at time troubling neo-nationalism there, as well as in Europe and world at large, this certainly is a valid gesture and a strong statement. I would like us to conclude by touching briefly on this. AM: It was very important to be tri-lingual from the very start. Especially as this is not so common for institutions across Latvia. We see ourselves as coming from the outside, so we don’t have any old history or emotions, or the troublesome “baggage” of past experience. Instead, we invite and embrace everyone equally. Sadly, this is perhaps not so easy for certain communities in Riga to accept. For us, using these three languages also shows that we are interested in speaking equally in both the metaphorical and the direct sense of this word, not in a single language. I don’t see this as some admirable gesture, it is just a natural thing to do. For me, it is weird to see 25-year-old Russian kids and 25-year-old Latvian kids sitting in different cafes, which one can sometimes notice in Riga and across the Baltics. Our events are tailored to serve as meeting places where people can speak about more universal topics, while of course, making a point. We are currently working towards Theodore Zeldin’s visit. As one of the most prominent thinkers of our time, he will come to Riga on the 7th of October to conduct his conversation series about finding a common language. Set in a speed-dating format, this event will require people who don’t know each other to converse on a topic or topics selected from the conversation menu. Served as courses “prepared” by Zeldin himself, our fellow citizens and guests will have to discuss these topics. And what could be a better first step than dealing with issues like these?

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still occupy a somewhat lower status with limited possibilities for education and growth. Institutions such as RIBOCA could play a crucial role in increasing the profile of this profession. What is your take on this?

As a side note, when we were still brainstorming about what to call the Biennial we were considering using “Hansa” or “Hanseatic” in the name as a way of bringing this historic marine route alive in the 21st century.

Agniya Mirgorodskaya. Photography by Peteris Viksna

AM: For me it is always inspiring and encouraging to see what the Liverpool Biennial is doing. It has a sincerity and integrity that we share, while at the same time they have a huge advantage that we don’t, at least for the moment—support from city and governmental entities that are proud to host such a project. We have a similar scale of operations and share an attitude of being serious about the local community and making a positive difference in the city. Another example is the Istanbul Biennial; there are fewer similarities because context and territory are completely different, but it is similar structure-wise and it is also privately founded. I enjoy the way it engages with different local venues, but also how it interacts with the city itself. There is, perhaps, another aspect we share with both of these examples; just like Riga they are “art port cities”, which is the case with many of the biennials. Biennials as the meeting point for “ships” from around the world where they can park for a while.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Interview x RIBOCA2

Zane Onckule (ZO): Rebecca, nice to meet you! Let’s start with looking back a bit. Can you please describe your background and the directions you take as a curator in your work with art and artists? Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel (RLV): I’ve always been interested in the modern obsession with progress—I am speaking here about Western culture—and all its consequences that have led to mastering, controlling, extracting, abusing, objectifying, and dividing the world and the beings who live within it. I am interested in challenging this predatory behaviour, and how we can, as creators and artists, reimagine ways of being human. I deeply believe that art and artworks can be essential tools for change, and that they constitute a crucial quest for alternative models. Apart from the art market, which certainly puts numbers on objects, art might be the one place where we can’t judge following objective criteria. I’m very grateful that we have this space for reflecting on how vast we are, on how subjective we can be, a place where we let go of the evidence in favour of the experience. Artworks put together webs of thoughts that are crucial for the extension of our sensitivities. This being said, I’m also very interested in understanding, or at least questioning, whether art has borders. I’ve been working a lot on challenging the boundaries and categories that can be found in the art world, questioning the very modern idea of the centre and the margins that has contributed to dividing us in great ways. I don’t believe, for example, in the notion of “outsider art”, which was created in the 20th century to define creations produced by self-taught artists, or by so-called mentally ill artists, or by anyone coming from a non-academic background. Who is the real artist and who is the fake artist? Is the art market darling a more real artist than an anonymous one working quietly every night on her or his obsession? Who is ill when we come to realize that our art academies have been producing a scandalous monopoly of white male artists? I believe that the art world system can be very limited and I want to create a much more inclusive space. I’m convinced that art can be found on the edges of historically accepted territories. Of course, I am not an objective curator and I highly doubt such a person can exist, nor that this would be interesting; I put all of my subjectivity into the process of exhibition-making, as well my fear, my hopes, and my despairs. I’m incredibly grateful to be working with artists who are continually challenging my views and certitudes, as they have chosen a path made of hypotheses and doubts, and I hope to be able to support and encourage these practices with all my energy and faith.

Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel. Photography by Peteris Viksna

ZO: Intriguing. Do any of your past projects unpack the notion of framing and re-framing categories of art? RLV: I am thinking of several projects, as indeed RIBOCA brings together many exhibitions I have worked on in the past, both directly and indirectly. One is Le Bord des Mondes (The Edge of the Worlds) in 2015 at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Inspired by the question Marcel Duchamp asked in 1913: “Can we make a work that is not of art?”, I wanted to inquire on how we can move past the borders that mark what is and what is not art, how we can overcome these modern categories that feel more and more useless and anachronistic. This exhibition-inquiry comprised 25 “creators” who would not call themselves artists, and whom I met during a year of research and extensive travels. Their practices were poetic, singular, and highly inspiring, and each of them had a very unique approach towards creation—thus the

Fernando Sánchez Castillo Guernica Syndrome, 2012/2018 Installation from the remaining materials of dictator Francisco Franco’s private boat: aluminium, steel, bronze; single-channel videos 5’ and 30’ Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist and tegenboschvanvreden, Amsterdam Photo by Ivan Erofeev

How can we restore the notion that humans are not at the top of an existential hierarchy? RIBOCA will ask how we can re-engage with our surroundings, how we can accept our role as collaborators, not as the ones in power. Annaïk-Lou Pitteloud Neo-Logos, 2017-18 Set of four neons in CMYK colours

I met Bridget Polk during this project, and have been inviting her to participate in my projects ever since. She balances rocks. It is a very vernacular practice—she finds the very fragile balancing point where one rock will stand atop one another in a seemingly impossible state of equilibrium. There is no glue or anything else involved and it looks unbelievable—totally magical. By using ancient rocks and newer construction materials her work plays with the notion of time, creating a balance between recent man-made creations and millennia-old minerals that tell about the history of the Earth. And you never know the duration of a piece. It can last three seconds, three hours, three weeks, which is also captivating. I’m interested in the necessity of resilience, the need to accept seeing these works disappear when at times they require hours to build. Bridget’s practice is one of modesty and collaboration with the laws of physics, a metaphor for Heraclitus’ infamous aphorism panta rhei, which means “everything flows”. Bridget will do her rock-balancing with the stones of Riga, taken from ruins and different layers of history. She is working with local geologists to get to know the stones better and to understand the stories behind each of them. Another example is the show I did with Tino Sehgal in 2016 where we took over the entire Palais de Tokyo building—around 13,000 square meters of space spread over three floors. It was about imagining the exhibition space as a shell: it became not only the place hosting the universe of the artist but also a space where we made time into one of our tools. It challenged the traditional norm of an exhibition as a gathering of still objects. Tino doesn’t produce material objects but engages solely with the immaterial; his works consist of encounters between the participants and the visitors. Palais de Tokyo was built for the International Exhibition of Arts and Technology in 1937. For his project it was completely emptied—only the main walls of the structure remained. The exhibition was an invitation to think about what can be produced when we do not produce objects: What can we construct that is not based on a materialistic perspective?

We used this “temple of art” as a site for human interactions. During the show’s two-month run we had over 400 participants, making it the biggest live art project that has ever been done. Like a marathon of huge duration. For visitors, it was not necessarily clear who was part of the work and who was not, and ultimately everyone became part of the work. It is this approach to exhibition—alive, plastic, and fluid—that I very much gravitate towards, where visitors count as much as the works in what I believe to be a more democratic and less authoritarian approach. ZO: Will you apply this type of sensory and embodied practice and experience to the exhibition in Riga? RLV: Yes, absolutely, I imagine this exhibition as a dynamic entity, a place in motion where artworks and beings transform and metamorphose. A space that welcomes discussions, performances, and debates, and that would be unceasingly enriched by the visitors and their sensitivities. The idea is also to work in very close proximity with different communities in Riga and to create a web, a network of solidarities and collaborations, that would hopefully outlast the biennial. The project will hopefully facilitate reflection on the ecology of our minds, which is to say: How can we first transform the way we think and the way we perceive our role on the Earth and then act as aware, conscious, and humble beings? I hope the biennial can facilitate such thoughts, and that each visitor will then carry this with them in their everyday actions and understandings. Many works will be dependent on the presence of the visitor to be activated, and the role of the visitor as an active character—a crucial presence without which the show would be impossible. In 2018 I worked on the exhibition On Air with Tomás Saraceno, an artist who works with non-human materials—mainly with spiders, atmospheres, and cosmic and terrestrial dust. The title points to the less visible aspects of our environment that nonetheless impact us in every possible way. Just think about the fact that every day a speck of microscopic cosmic dust falls on your shoulders. After centuries of a hyper-anthropocentric mindset, it is very much the history of the entanglements and interconnectedness between beings that we should build on. How can we restore the notion that humans are not at the top of an existential hierarchy? There is a much wider and more varied network of presences and matters. RIBOCA will ask how we can re-engage with our surroundings, how we can accept our role as collaborators, not as the ones in power.

ZO: N WIND is spending a year focusing on change, especially change-makers— the people behind ideas, movements, and projects. Under the theme Changing Environment we will be investigating environmental change, how new environments affect us, the Anthropocene, the creation of new environments and new materials through science and the arts. RIBOCA will look at the loud, worn-out, yet still very crucial theme of “the end of the world”. Could you please unpack the themes, concepts, ideas, and references that will feed into it? RLV: My ongoing interest is the theme that deals with new mental landscapes and how we can challenge the current state of affairs, change the way we perceive, engage, interact, and sense. It all starts with accepting that there is a problem. But I am reluctant to use the word “crisis”. By saying that we are going through a crisis would mean that the model we had before was acceptable, and that some brutal event has perturbed this initial state we long to return to. There is no crisis, there only is the need to start the metamorphosis of our models. These times call for reinvention. The huge increase in “collapsology” discourse—the fatalist notion of “the end of the world” is back. But this idea has been haunting humanity almost from the beginning. Starting, for example, with the Epic of Gilgamesh that tells about the Great Deluge in 2100 BC. I think today’s obsession with the end of the world is a sign of the great anxiety we feel because of the lack of creative models. Apocalypse discourse has almost become a new religion, with its prophets and economy. I do not support this idea of a huge, threatening, sublime, romantic take on nature as a frightening creature that will kill us all. Firstly, because I don’t find it a particularly interesting conceptual tool to work with, and secondly, because we need to revise the idea that nature is outside of us, a distant monster we could eventually master. We are part of it, we are inextricably linked. It is all about understanding how to thrive together on a shared planet. This is why I am interested in the idea of re-enchantment, etymologically deriving from the word “chant”—a song or spell. Reenchantment is about listening to other voices, those we have silenced or those we couldn’t hear. Re-enchantment calls for the end of a world, but not for the end of the world. I believe in and stand for modesty, humility, doubt, and uncertainty.

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use of the word “creator” for lack of a better one. Their work had hardly ever been shown in an exhibition. Most of them had never had an experience in the art world and were very surprised when I reached out to them. They would continuously say to me: “But I am not an artist!”

C: 100 × 637 cm / M: 100 × 1198 cm Y: 100 × 909 cm / K: 100 × 1185 cm Courtesy of the artist and Barbara Seiler Gallery, Zürich Photo by Ivan Erofeev

– Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel

N WIND x Interview x RIBOCA2

ZO: Let’s talk about the format for RIBOCA. How it will be shaped in terms of venues, thematic lines, etc.? People refer to you as a curator with an affinity for large, immersive, embodied practices while not shying away from experimentation. RIBOCA 2 will be your largest curatorial project to date, and a chance to show your approach to a large audience. How do you work towards this “demand” for producing a visually impressive exhibition while—and this is my guess—maintaining your interest in keeping it emotional, relatable, and intuitive?

RLV: Every artist is invited to work around and within the context of the region, but here I have to mention a question posed by the philosopher Michel Serres in his book The Natural Contract. He asks how we could start to recognise the agency of non-human beings, to consider them as legal agents with their own rights? He also speaks about the opaqueness of any law under which we, as humans, actually operate or should operate. Are we under the law of nations, or the law of the Earth? When a meteorite falls, when a hurricane hits lands, when hyper-objects create massive destruction, what type of legislation comes into play? It is a significant question that supports the point that we are entangled with much bigger phenomena than our nations and our borders. There is also a history of Riga I am deeply inspired by—the idea that enchantment can be used to frame the resilience of Riga and the Baltics in general. Arguably, the world has “ended” in the Baltics many times since the 13th century; different moments of occupation meant people had to be in a permanent state of reinvention. The biennial was inspired by this strong balance between humans and non-humans that lies at the core of Latvian culture—the Latvians’ relationships with earthly and cosmic rhythms, despite incredibly complex political and geopolitical contexts.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

ZO: You seem to be interested in the ecological and geographical aspects of the Baltic region for the upcoming biennial. Surrounded by forests rich with berries and mushrooms, our at times escapist and bucolic lifestyle and beliefs are in contrast with what actually is happening with, for example, the Baltic Sea. It is said to be one of the most threatened marine ecosystems on the planet because of Soviet practices but equally due to the massive and aggressive industrial presence of the past three decades. I am wondering if the sea or some other “case study” from the region might play a role in the upcoming biennial? Or to put it another way: will any Baltic case studies be discussed/ displayed in the biennial?

RLV: We are still in the process of confirming venues, but the question of location is very important for me as it defines how the show will unfold. The biennial will include very different scales—from small, domestic venues where we can address the quotidian aspects of our lives to the more common, generic sites such as hotels where we reflect on the modern idea that the waking state is when we are the most productive; but what happens when you encounter an artwork at night in your sleep? Other venues will be bigger, way beyond human scale, places that are devoted to production activities. I like the idea that we could all suddenly feel lost in a space that humans have built but which feels way too big and ambitious to welcome anyone. Such grand scales also lead me to think about moving in space; I want to invite visitors to walk a lot to experience this project, to wander. This further leads to think about de-growth, humility, and slowing down the pace of our lives. I believe that walking is one of the most emancipatory and meditative tools that we, as humans, have. We will also work with chefs from different restaurants, inviting them to imagine the taste of re-enchantment. We are also looking at spaces designed as sites where fun and entertainment happens—night clubs, places of leisure and amusement. These are almost like “islands” that welcome a transcendental state of mind... Re-enchantment is also about the reentanglement of these categories, recognising the poetic in all moments of life. ZO: Let’s conclude with an open question, a bit of speculation: Is the biennial, as a medium of expression, pointless or relevant in today’s exhibition production? It would be very interesting to know your perspective as the chief curator now organising one such biennial. In preparation for our conversation, I have briefly chatted with fellow curators and artists, and am particularly curious to know why we should not fund institutions, educational platforms, or artists instead? We are aware of the great benefits that RIBOCA brings to the city and to the region in general, but I would be interested to have your response beyond that. RLV: I think this is a relevant question. Why should we fund a biennial and not an institution, which seems to many to be the ideal model? This question comes from the very 20th century idea about the way art patronage should take place. We still tend to see the institution as the main model, but we should not forget that institutions are also places of conservation and stillness, and that they facilitate a certain exercise of power. This power is exerted in the very structure of the institution, upon the visitors, the artworks, and the artists. Institutions have contributed to

silencing the voices of the marginal and the non-conformist, and they are places where a certain kind of history is written. They are also places of invaluable enrichment; it is incredible to be able to conserve objects that bear witness to the vastness of humankind. But more and more I think that the best model for our time would be a nomadic one, without a set space—more towards the idea of the biennial. With a biennial you can have a volatile, fluid, and transforming project; each edition provides a new perspective, a new voice, a new engagement with the city, the region, the art scene. The absence of a monopoly leads me to think that we might have to re-frame what we consider to be an institution. We might have to accept that the institution as we know it may disappear, as being so fixed may no longer be interesting or relevant for a re-enchanted world. The biennial is also deeply engaged in supporting artists as it provides a significant production budget and nearly all invited artists will create new works for this occasion. The whole project is also conceived of as an educational platform, reaching out widely to various communities for the whole duration of the show and, hopefully, facilitating easier access to art and culture for those who might feel that culture doesn’t belong to them or that they don’t belong to culture. I see the biennial as a form of celebration, a unique moment of coming together where art can be understood as a common good, as a filter that helps penetrate the complexity and fragility of our time.

Zane Onckule

I think today’s obsession with the end of the world is a sign of the great anxiety we feel because of the lack of constructive models. Apocalypse discourse has almost become a new religion, with its prophets and economy.

Zane Onckule is a curator based between NYC and Riga. From 2010–17 she was Programme Director and Curator at Kim? Contemporary Art Center in Riga. She has organised, curated and co-curated exhibitions, parallel programming as well as edited publications and other corresponding materials in collaboration with artists, curators, and theoreticians. She was co-commissioner of Baltic Triennial 13 in 2018 (curated by Vincent Honore) and co-commissioner of the Latvian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennial organised in partnership with Art in General. She studied art history at the Art Academy of Latvia, communication science at the University of Latvia, and photography at Zurich University of Arts; she holds a bachelor’s degree from Banking Institution of Higher Education in Latvia [now the BA School of Business and Finance] and a master’s from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard). Her ongoing interests include modes of language, writing, production, and the notion of retreat, all seen through the lens of questioning the conditions of art practices.

Lance Gerber. Reality & Virtuality

Author Victoria Dias

Whenever we now hear or read the word ‘environment’ it appears together with alarming facts and statistics in the form of apocalyptic scenarios—ideas that have taken root in our collective consciousness to the point of overwhelm.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Essay x Victoria Dias

YOU WILL NOT FIND THIS IN GOOGLE

We will probably become ‘material tellers’, not creating new products but rather new connections. – Victoria Dias

Doug Aitken, Lance Gerber, Neville Wakefield. Desert X. Installation California Couthern Art Exhibition Mirror.

Lance Gerber. Reality & Virtuality 2

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Essay x Victoria Dias

The American Psychological Association has pointed out the need to recognise ‘ecoanxiety’, or how fear of climate change is causing depression, anxiety, and PTSD on mass scales. Yes, our environmental problems have begun to feel bigger-than-us, and nothing is more paralyzing than fear as it often becomes a new comfort zone. It feels safer to hide behind fear instead of activating, learning, changing, and transforming. But what if we, as human beings together, move into a state of ‘positive discomfort’? Crisis has historically awakened the sleeping genius in us. Always. Whenever we talk about the environment and the cataclysmic dangers we have begun to experience in global warming matters, we invariably talk about materials in all forms—from raw to waste. Material culture surrounds us and yet is habitually overlooked as we have the tendency to notice products, designs, structures, and even smells, more than the materials themselves. We live in a material world and human interaction with materials is primal as, in addition to their function, materials have sensorial properties that are key to our understanding of the world and of ourselves. Therefore, I dedicate this article to ‘materiality’. I promise this is not going to be one of those environmental articles dedicated to informing you about how

many tonnes of plastic we throw into the oceans, the astounding quantities of meat we eat, or how cheap sweaters are going to kill us all in a slow, warm, and-no-so-chic death. Instead I will share my vision about the future of the material world in three examples, or stages, through which we can experience change in our perception of both the self and nature to move towards a true transformation centred on the sensorial. Tools & containers Why are materials so important to human development? What is the primal human connection to materials? In a conversation with Carl Knappett, professor at the University of Toronto and expert in theories of material culture and materiality, he told me about Carl Clive Gamble, a man with some interesting ideas. Gamble brought together theories about ‘instruments’ and ‘containers’, seeing them as two basic aspects or categories of material culture into which the entire physical world is divided. We might first think that instruments and containers are important to human evolutionary development because of what they offer functionally. However, there is another vital way in which these two aspects are important. It has to do with how they allow us to think beyond ourselves. They provide scaffolding for our thoughts. “Consider containers again. It is possible that by making containers early humans came to think of their own bodies as containers too”, Knappett said. “And then again, the human body can be a tool or an instrument too, and then this recursive link allowed humans to think what it might mean for themselves and for others—and hence to develop further ideas on bodily identity, the self, etc.” If we have always thought in binaries, even before technology

appeared with its 0s and 1s, we probably thought in terms of tools and containers. Again, binary. I wonder how our perception of materiality will continue to evolve. Perhaps it will continue on in the same way as it has throughout our previous existence. Dr. Knappett’s view is this: “The construction of permanent abodes and monumental cult structures; the use of pyrotechnology to make pottery; the advent of metallurgy, first bronze and then iron. These alone created massive changes in our relations to materials. Some of them were tied up in the emergence of towns and cities: urban living would itself have constituted a massive change in our relations to materials—not least in how much of the stuff being consumed would have been made by someone else. And then we tend to think that with subsequent innovations, as those of the industrial revolution and subsequently, we today lead material lives that are nothing like those of our distant ancestors. And yet, perhaps our relationship to materials, socially and cognitively, is not so very different than before.” In a world where our environment is under threat, innovators explore how adaptable and forward-thinking designs, materials, and systems could turn nature into our salvation. Design is evolving to have a much more positive production development mindset with products, materials, and systems that can transform waste into beauty, use fewer natural resources, and discover new uses for existing materials such as algae and mushrooms; and upcycling, reusing, and even re-commerce (a revitalized business structure in which retailers and consumers benefit from the growing re-sale economy, reducing waste and creating new post-sales revenues streams) are growing in popularity.

Olafur Eliasson. Tate 3

Olafur Eliasson. Tate 4

Olafur Eliasson. Ice Watch. Photo by Justin Sutcliffe

The idea of parallel realities has always fascinated me, that other materials exist but are invisible to our senses because they have an unreadable frequency or level of vibration. And masters of meditation tell us that we can only experience reality at the most elevated levels of consciousness, as when ‘seeing yourself sensing’, as Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson would say. In 2014 Eliasson created Ice Watch in City Hall Square in Copenhagen—an installation of twelve huge chunks of centuries-old ice brought from Greenland so viewers could fully experience how they slowly melted. “When you touch an old block of melting Greenlandic inland ice, you physically feel the reality of time passing and climate change”, Eliasson said. According to the artist his immersive installations, such as In

The Subtle What I call The Subtle is yet to come but it also explores humanity’s previous and most primitive relationship with materials. I didn’t know if I should put it first or last… perhaps because we move in circles. In addition to our strong and ancient relationship with materiality and material culture, as human beings we possess the unique capacity for abstract thinking—the power of imagining something that is not possible for us to feel or touch with the senses yet exists in our personal or collective realities. Only humans can talk about things we have never seen, touched, or smelled. Think religion, myth, legend, and fantasy. Think social media platforms. Think VR. Think digital purchase. As the digital world becomes more real through VR and Mixed Reality technologies, the textile & fashion world is already talking about ‘design-for-the-digital’ or designs created to be

To solve the complex, interconnected challenges of the future products and services must increasingly be developed as part of a larger vision of human civilisation, one with individuals having fewer possessions. We will probably become ‘material tellers’, not creating new products but rather new connections.

Victoria Dias, is a textile engineer, a fashion branding innovator, a conceptual fashion product & brand image developer. For the last 17 years she consults global fashion & lifestyle brands and agencies providing strategic intelligence, macro-trend forecasts, material research and design innovations. victoriadias.com @veedias

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

In Real Life

The Experience Economy is attempting to minimise the production of goods by creating intangible products consisting of curated moments, memorable emotions, and unique experiences. Experience design is the new product-free platform where nature and art meet science. In our troubling era, design can work in synergy with nature and play a central role in transforming the crises we face into positive challenges. We are evolving metrics that prioritise happiness and, in the face of an uncertain future, consumers will be celebrating each ‘small happiness’ in the form of relaxing experiences, sensorial rituals, and moments of generosity.

bought and worn in virtual realities. For example, Iris Van Herpens designs digital dresses to be worn in our digital social life as the dresses don’t exist in the physical world. As machine learning allows the virtual marketplace to grow in new directions it will gather momentum and offer enormous potential for designing new aesthetics, experiences, and supply chains.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is to expand our way of thinking. We will see an impact only when we change our perspective and mindset, when we begin to truly appreciate nature, not only as a source of material. The true change will come when we begin interacting with nature as creators rather than as consumers.

Real Life currently at the Tate Modern in London, seek to answer even deeper questions, including: Is nature constructed? Is nature real? Is it fake? Does nature exist?

Victoria Dias. Photography by Tomas Griškevičius

Perhaps the biggest challenge is to change or expand our way of thinking. Only when we change our perspective and mindset will we see an impact. A major change will happen when we see a growing appreciation of nature, not seeing it as a source of material anymore, not as the ‘container of the tool’. A true environmental change will be the one powered by the idea of perceiving ourselves as the containers of nature. The true change will come when we will start to interact with nature as creators rather than as consumers.

Author Polina Lyapustina

FFF: GET NAKED TO RECONNECT WITH NATURE Many years ago in Norway, when these young activists were enjoying their freedom, a conversation about how natural nudity was and how it connected people with nature started them on their life-long journey together.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x FFF x Polina Lyapustina

“We are the only creatures on this planet who wear clothes, but also the only ones who destroy their own environment. We were talking about ancient people who may have been more aggressive but had definitely more respect for nature. Gaining civility we lost that connection to nature. By wearing clothes we separated ourselves from nature and, having lost respect for what was no longer a part of us, we began to use and destroy the environment. So, maybe this disconnection from nature and the problems we have with our own bodies have something to do with each other.” They began by creating public performances showing people how they could feel natural and accept their bodies and their sexuality with no shame. Their initial idea was liberating the body to reconnect with nature. The documentation of those events became the first content for FFF. “People have lost the connection with their own nature and can’t feel free about their bodies. We use clothes not only to protect ourselves, but also as a form of censorship. Nudity is not publicly acceptable. You may think porn is a difficult subject, but nudity is way more contrary to social norms now.” That is true. Watching or making pornography is not illegal, but you cannot stand on the street naked. But what is so bad about being naturally naked? When did people stop accepting their bodies and lose the feeling of their own naturalness? “In the ‘70s the first porn movies in Denmark, the US, and France were made to educate. This helped people accept their bodies and their sexuality. Sex education was in high demand. Since we had been ashamed of our own bodies for many centuries people wanted to discover more about it. Sexuality was something truly liberating and funny and nice in those movies. Porn was very positive.

15 years after the launch of the Fuck For Forest website— a members only adult content website that uses its funds to support rainforests—its founders are not the same as they once were. They are older, bolder, and wiser, with all their memories, experience, and improved goals. Leona Johansson and Tommy Hol Ellingsen. Founders of FFF.

They started to promote their ideas at different events and were very happy and proud to share their perspective with others, but after seeing the word PORN many people lost interest in FFF. But those people who did join FFF did positive and natural stuff only. It definitely looked provocative and meant to be emphatic and thought-provoking. “Sex itself is great. Sex is beautiful. It shouldn’t be destructive or egocentric like the industry has made it. We wanted to make that clear for everyone. So we had to be public and we wanted to be public.” One of the happiest countries in the world, their motherland Norway, didn’t accept their efforts. So, after a few years, they moved to Berlin. “For 10 years we made erotic performances in Berlin. We filmed people having natural experiences with their bodies and with each other. Those people became our main contributors and our friends. We gave money to different initiatives working directly

“After years of performances and sexual education, working toward building a connection between people, their bodies, and nature, we found that we ourselves were disconnected. We had no idea how to grow our own food. We understood that if the infrastructure in Europe breaks down most people will be able to… what? Message their friends: We have no food. And the reply will be: We don’t either.” So here they are. In Mexico. Reconnecting themselves with nature. And, as always, they are ready to share their experiences with the world. They know sustainable living is not easy. Although Tommy’s father was a farmer, as a performer and activist himself, he had no proper knowledge of agriculture. “We came here to understand farming, to learn, to live in harmony with nature, to destroy nothing, and to be sustainable. But also to work with the FFF website and with social media because we are a part of modern society and we need to reach other people. If we want to save nature we have to work with humans. With this disconnection that humankind has developed. We came into this situation when wars and pollution are more normal for us than a naked person on a street. And this is an issue to be solved.”

Polina Lyapustina is a UXdesigner and opera critic. She writes reviews and essays for OperaWire.com, keeping abreast of both major and modern indie operas and festivals all over the world. She has also written art criticism for various publications such as Shmopera, Bravissimo, Nemunas, Sobaka and Hypertext.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

“We can accept and use our bodies for ourselves again. We don’t need money for our bodies, for sex. And if we overcome our fear of being naked, of showing our sex to other people, if we can make what’s called pornography, then we can use the money we get from this good and positive activity to protect our planet.”

And so they moved another step forward on their long journey towards natural living—crossing borders, overcoming social and governmental resistance, through the liberating decadence of Berlin, and, finally, back to nature in the forests of Mexico. From the north to the south. Maybe just to feel better being naked under the southern sun, because actually, nudity is a seed.

Tommy and Leona live in Mexico. They are looking for professionals who are ready to join them and help them build a sustainable community based on the same principles as FFF.

And so, good and bad pornography separated. One day, Tommy and Leona asked themselves: Why can’t we simply return to the good old porn? Porn to educate people, to liberate them.

with ecological problems. But one day we became tired of the decadence of Berlin , which is another way to fight all those social rules. We wanted to work with nature, with plants, and the earth directly.”

Polina Lyapustina

In the ‘80s the industry started to make a value of the human body — objectify it. What’s sexy? What sells better? They started to reflect the weakness and sickness of humanity. On a psychological level sex always reflects our problems and traumas. The industry used this knowledge to sell more. They stopped educating. And porn immediately earned a very bad reputation.”

Photography by NASA Naval Research Laboratory Parker Solar Probe

Author Goda Raibytė

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Essay x Goda Raibytė

BORROWED TIME UNDER THE SUN The Sun is not just the cute yellow ball we see from Earth. Scientists wonder how its processes will affect and change the Earth in the future.

One explosion can send millions of tonnes of plasma into space at speeds faster than anything humans can build. – Goda Raibytė

Photography by Solar Dynamics Observatory NASA

The Sun continuously pours out charged particles and electromagnetic radiation into space. It’s a violent ball of enormous eruptions—one explosion can send millions of tonnes of plasma into space at speeds faster than anything humans can build.

Observations of the Sun Throughout human history we have been studying the Sun to piece together a more definite picture of what it is and how it works. Thousands of years ago, the Babylonians were the first to regularly record their findings. The advancement of modern science lets us observe the Sun more closely, not only from Earth but also from space using satellites. We are no longer scared that during an eclipse the Sun will disappear forever. We can even predict when it will happen with down-tothe-minute precision! We know what the Sun is made of, that it has cycles of sunspots every 11 years, and that there are extreme phenomena and disturbances that take place both above and below its surface. We can calculate when the Sun came into being and its probable time of death. We have also discovered other stars similar to our own. But there is still a lot to learn. We observe what happens with the Sun, but don’t really understand the reasons why. For example, we have no idea what causes solar flares. The Parker Solar Probe—the most recent and most advanced NASA mission to the Sun. Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe is

If such plasma cloud happens to hit the Earth it would disturb the magnetosphere that protects our planet and generate large amounts of radiation. This would severely disrupt the infrastructures we all use in our daily lives— electric transformers would be destroyed causing continental blackouts. Imagine what would happen if one day all of Europe suddenly went dark—no connectivity, no electricity, just chaos and desperation! And, as things are now, this could happen without warning. This is the main reason scientists are concerned about the Sun. The Solar Storm of 1859 aka the Worst Solar Storm. Telegraph wires, which were the cutting-edge tech of the time, suddenly burned out across the United States and Europe, igniting fires that spread far and wide. As we rely much more on technology nowadays, a similar event would be much more devastating. We know of a few instances when this has already happened. A solar storm hit Canada in 1989 and the entire state of Quebec was left without power for several hours, and this was a relatively small event. Bigger storms could wreak havoc across the globe. Scientists have

At the moment we have only our best guess to rely on when predicting space weather because we don’t fully understand how the Sun works. We haven’t been investing enough time and money into changing this situation and most of the tools we use today are over 20 years old! Luckily, the European Space Agency and NASA have joined forces to build instruments that could provide an early warning if a destructive solar storm were about to hit the Earth. With a little luck we will have enough time to fill the gaps in our knowledge, because we may be living on borrowed time.

Goda Raibytė is the TL;TR version of Goda: cosmos, science, journalism, communications, tech, data, techno. Former editor at the Lithuanian national radio and television, current freelance science journalist, communicator, and a soon-to-be author.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

Without the Sun, the Earth would be just a lifeless frozen rock. The Sun is essential for our oceans, for the atmosphere, and for plants that use the Suns energy for food and then provide us with oxygen.

How the Sun affects the Earth

calculated that a significant solar storm could take place in the upcoming decade.

the fastest human-made object ever, hitting speeds of 692000 km/h. The probe will fly within 6 million km of the Sun’s surface, facing extreme conditions like no other spacecraft before. The Parker Solar Probe will expand our understanding of the Sun.

Goda Raibytė. Photography by Jushke-Lamų slėnis

I grew up in a small town with next to zero light pollution so the sky was perfect for stargazing. I found out that most of the tiny blinking dots I saw were stars. Later, my mind was blown by the fact that thousands of them have planets, potentially similar to Earth. Stars are the primary power sources for these planets, making them habitable or not.

Author Giedrė Stabingytė

TECH IS CULTURE Each year, many gatherings around the world celebrate tech, from small seminars to the coolest tech conferences on the planet.

Festival Director Marie Louise Gørvild

And, although these events are expanding our minds, one can easily find oneself on the periphery, swimming through the drizzling hype that tech prophets inevitably radiate: Hey! Check your pulse. How tech are you? Suddenly there is a radar to locate you based on your tech readiness. Are you the beeping dot at the centre of it? Hands on the future, man! Or are you there, where most of us are, circling far from the big stage conversations about the future, not quite keeping up with the previously unimaginable pace of tech start-ups, trying to figure out how there is, again, one more degree of separation between the haves and the have-nots? So, why of the great multitude of aspirational tech gatherings, did we choose Techfestival in Copenhagen? Because they tell it like it is: Tech is becoming our culture. As beamingly enthusiastic festival director Marie Louise Gørvild says ‘…what grew up in the garage is now in charge.’ Marie remembers the beginning of her career in Silicon Valley: ‘Back then, when Mark Zuckerberg was hot, but kind of also happy and carefree’, tech was the counterculture, the sub-culture. Geeky founders were all about hacking the system. ‘Disrupt or die!’ they cried from their garages. Not anymore! Fast forward to the misuse of personal data, the weaponization of social media platforms. ‘Slogans like ‘Disrupt or die’ have fallen short as servants of old thinking […] There is simply too much at risk now,’ Marie says. She believes we have to challenge the Silicon Valley playbook. But where else do we look for answers? Everywhere. What is it we are looking for? ‘The next culture, the next mentality of building tech. Care or die.’

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Techfestival

Photography from techfestival.co

Techfestival was initiated by Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, co-founder of the first Danish internet company in 1995. He now leads TwentyThree, a global video marketing platform. Techfestival is a bonfire gathering that focuses on the human response to technological progress—people come to share inspiration and ideas, but also their hope for a future based on integrity. No radars for that, everyone is in. Drawing over 16 000 people to Kødbyen, Copenhagen’s iconic Meatpacking district, this festival creates room for conversation and the creation of a new tech culture. This year, for the third time, more than 300 speakers kicked off over 200 work sessions, summits, open-air talks, installations, and social events. And what about that new playbook for tech? Techfestival 150 is a pop-up think tank within the festival—a gathering of 150 leading figures in the field of tech. This year they came together to write a new set of guidelines—a #TechPledge. Monika Katkutė, founder of bit&Byte academy of creative technologies for kids and teachers, is one of the heroes of this issue of NWIND. She helped create #TechPledge with her bold statement and has written an essay to tell us about her experience. techfestival.co

Monika Katkutė. Photography by Linas Masiokas.

Author Monika Katkutė

Monika is the founder of the bit&Byte academy of creative technologies for kids. Recently, bit&Byte started a #TeachersLeadTech movement with the mission of growing technological competency among teachers and, most importantly, to empower teachers to lead tech education with confidence. “Teaching kids to create their own tech will bring new skills and organisational thinking into education. I believe teachers should lead the change,” says Monika of her ambitious goal to deliver creative technology content to 1 million teachers by 2025. Reach out to Monika: hello@bitbyte.lt Read an interview with Monika in N WIND issue №14 at issuu.com/n_wind

Enough gambling with human vulnerabilities to cover your free buffet! I want to strike at the heart of the tech industry. As a vocal cheerleader for all the amazing achievements and solutions that come with booming tech innovation—from Instagram’s instant visual sharing to CRISPR’s gene cutting scissors—I feel privileged to live in the age of tech where I can learn from and compete with creative technologists around globally and use these innovations to solve real problems. But our thirst for rapid development and limitless achievement has left the human element in second place. Technology has gone from being the means to achieve goals, spark invention,

In early September, the organisers of Techfestival in Copenhagen invited 150 tech minds to participate in its third pop-up think tank to challenge the industry to pause, consider what is spinning out of control, and accept that the race might never stop if we don’t change the rules of the game. The first think tank convened at Techfestival 2017 to write the Copenhagen Letter and start a conversation about the values and principles that guide the tech industry. In 2018 the think tank published the Copenhagen Catalog—a set of 150 guiding principles for those involved in shaping technology. This year, 150 tech minds gathered once again to draft #TechPledge, an oath of ethics and accountability for those making tech—maybe for you.

My head was bubbling with questions. Why do we speak loudly, yet write softly? We are being too polite, conforming to expectations, as if afraid to offend anyone with the truth: The industry celebrates the progress of technology created by a select few who grow fat by capitalising on human vulnerabilities. Making tech easy, addictive, and unavoidable. The petrochemical industry exploits nature. What if the tech industry is exploiting humans?

It started with us a standing in a circle beneath a windy Copenhagen sky. We all said our names and named the feeling buzzing inside. Mine was, as usual, curiosity. Over one hundred strangers to work with, and I knew just one.

Pledge to create products and services that strengthen humans and lift them up. Remember that change is reality and reality is change, despite the discomfort.

The process was exhausting and exciting at the same time. We had 24 hours to listen and to make ourselves heard, to trade

The outcome of those 24 hours we spent together is a pledge, similar to the Hippocratic oath, for those involved in building tech. Don’t hide behind your company or your title. Technology is powerful, and so are your daily decisions.

Read the pledge, sign it, and share it. Or go the uneasy road— embody it in your work and your daily choices. techpledge.org

N WIND x Essay x Monika Katkutė

Enough of “Let’s build now and think later.” Enough of “Let’s find a business model and then maybe fix what we broke along the way.” Enough of “Let’s make some bright shiny technology and then deal with the consequences, preferably after an IPO.”

From rising numbers of screen addicts and limitless consumption of gadgets to politically destabilising deepfakes and polarising troll armies, tech’s problem issues keep piling up—and the voices of those who refuse to go with the flow are growing louder and more confident.

places and to challenge each other, to stay authentic yet integrate. We formed groups to work on different themes—from new business models to a tech-free society. Choose a topic, discuss, record the ideas, and move on. We all worked to stretch each other’s limits, asking the other participants to engage, challenge, and clarify their points of view. Identifying your own voice in a sea of opinions is hard. This is the process of collaboration.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

Enough.

bring about change, inspire progress, to becoming the goal itself.

Last year, Monika Katkutė was invited to participate in Techfestival 150, a think tank for new directions in tech, but says she only found the determination to raise her voice this year. In September 2019, she joined 149 other leaders, developers, founders, entrepreneurs, thinkers, hackers, writers, and tech insiders for 24 hours of brainstorming and collaboration to write a #TechPledge to encourage people working in the field to take their positions and responsibilities seriously. She has written an essay for N WIND about the experience.

Title: Sleater Kinney—The Center Won’t Hold Author: Karolis Vyšniauskas About the author: Karolis Vyšniauskas is a Vilnius-based journalist covering cultural and social issues. He has hosted a number of different radio shows supporting the local Lithuanian music scene and now puts his energy into developing NYLA, the first podcast in Lithuania supported by its listeners via Patreon. The podcast is produced by the Lithuanian journalists collective Nanook. Ageism is the last acceptable “ism” in today’s society. Of course, I didn’t feel this way when I myself was a part of “the young generation”. I literally hosted a radio show called I’m 20-something. My journalistic mission was to promote young undiscovered talent.

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

N WIND x Review

But once you turn 30, something unexpected happens. Your new favourite actors and musicians are younger than you are. The bands that shaped you have either split up or turned into the shadows of themselves. Those are the better case scenarios. The worst case is finding out that your beloved singer took his own life. Or manipulated underage fans for his sexual needs. It’s easy to feel hopeless, betrayed, and old. But then there’s Sleater Kinney. This is one of the most underrated bands of our generation, hardly known in Vilnius though they have a cult following in the US. Twenty-five years after they started out, they have just put out this fresh, adventurous come-back album produced by St. Vincent—The Center Won’t Hold. Having achieved everything they could with their pure guitar sound, the band reinvented themselves. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker, the electric duo at the heart of Sleater Kinney, refused to become a legacy act. “My relationship to music is right now,” says Carrie. In my teenage years I was inspired by punk bands and their “live fast, die young” ethos. Now I have begun to realise that true resistance is to keep on creating art, even when society says your time has run out. nyla.lt instagram: karolish

THE TECH Title: Baltic sea in your pocket Author: Kotryna Čalova About the author: Brand strategist at Black Swan Brands These days, people are obsessed with tracking things. We wear shoes that measure how fast we run and high-tech bras that track the rhythm of our breathing. Fitness-tracking has almost become an international epidemic. And the worst part is that regardless of money, time and good intentions to incorporate it into our lives, most of us actually fail to reflect on the data we have collected that could help us make changes in our behaviour. Yeah, that’s the most difficult part. However, there is always a bright side. I recently stumbled on this beautiful, interactive data visualisation designed by Andstudio in collaboration with motion graphic designer Mindaugas Dudėnas and Klaipeda University. It’s an app that tracks the intensity of waves in the Baltic Sea and streams the information visually. While for me it’s just a piece of art or a form of meditation, for others it’s an important tool for their daily work. According to the design team, lots of time was put into accommodating the different types of potential users and their individual needs. What’s even more interesting is the fact that the beautiful, seemingly random patterns generated by the app have become part of the new brand identity for Klaipeda University—the university by the sea. Check out the app at ku.lt/apps/ design @kotrone

Photography by Felix Laasme

Artwork by Mindaugas Dudėnas

Album cover

THE MUSIC

THE PLACE Title: A Visual Feast in the Heart of Tallinn Author: Kotryna Čalova About the author: Brand strategist @Black Swan Brands This is a call to all pleasure seekers! A hot new restaurant has opened in Kopli street at the very heart of Tallinn’s Bohemian quarter. ODEON is an “all-in-one” venue, combining a restaurant, a bar, and a contemporary social club dedicated to creative community. Created with an aesthetically demanding audience in mind, ODEON’s design will instantly take over your senses. Just walk in and you are transported in time and space, straight to an American diner from the 1950s but reconceptualized with a modern aesthetic. The atmosphere is warm, loud and crowded—all of which conspire to put you into an almost trancelike state, but in a happy, relaxed, dreamy kind of way. Although ODEON only opened its doors this year, the restaurant’s surreal interior, designed by Atelier Sérgio Rebelo in collaboration with Mary Jordan, has already been long listed for the Dezeen Awards 2019. So, if you happen to be in Tallinn, don’t miss out on this visual feast—it has 0 calories but the satisfaction of being there is equal to a hot fudge sundae. Yum! odeon.ee @kotrone

About the author: Poet & journalist If we think about our constantly changing environments and artworks that contribute to this change, we need to select those pieces that make us ache inside. This ache is what inspires us to be better, softer, and, most importantly, more conscious regarding the environment surrounding us. This is exactly what the documentary Honeyland, directed by Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska, is like. No wonder it was the most awarded film at the Sundance Film Festival this year. It’s the story of an elderly woman, Hatidze, who is the last female beekeeper of wild bees in Europe. As a spectator, you can’t help but be fascinated by her authenticity, calm, and asceticism. You realise how far most of us are from harmony with the self and from nature, and how little such a person really needs. In this film every shot is beautiful and necessary. Even the filthy kids and the dead bee. As if it were one of Aesop’s fables, Honeyland teaches us not to be greedy, to live in peace with nature, and to be grateful for the beauty and sustenance she provides. This film is an anthem celebrating the humannature connection and a wonderful lesson in reconciliation, acceptance, and starting everything from scratch. One more time. Without complaining. As the film ends, the spectator is left with the sweet, sweet taste of the honeycomb—the same taste Hatidze feels in the final moments of the film.

Mühle metal razor

THE THING

Title: Planetary Echoes. Exploring the Implications of Human Settlement in Outer Space

Title: The comeback of metal single-blade razors

Author: Aistė Jūrė About the author: She is a creative director with an interest in printed pages and semiotics. It was the 40th anniversary of the famous Blue Marble photograph, a view of Earth taken from space. A short documentary called Overview was uploaded on vimeo. com, introducing to the viewers (more than 8 million at the time of writing) a new kind of self-awareness. The overview effect, as described by astronauts who have experienced it, is a vivid understanding of Earth as a whole system. Understanding that everything on our home planet is connected has, in a sense, led to the Anthropocenic Grief so many people feel nowadays. Overpopulation, climate change, and shortages in our energy and water supplies are just a few concerns from the long list of disastrous Earth’s scenarios that are at the root of our worries. In 2016, Stephen Hawking warned that humans should colonise another planet in the next hundred years or face extinction. “By that time, we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race.” This is not a sci-fi idea, as it might sound to people like me who haven’t been following NASA on Instagram. Planetary Echoes could become a mindset-shifting book, introducing (nots so far) future perspectives on how we humans could become a multi-planet species. Sustainable space travel, architecture in zero gravity, terraforming (modifying the temperature, atmosphere, and surface topography to make other planets more ‘Earth-like’), and other topics are all briefly touched upon by the ‘space riders’ themselves. My favourite quote from the book is from Anousheh Ansari, the first self-funded female space traveller: “I think access to space should be open source.” @aistejure

Author: Emilija Antanavičiūtė (Urban Earth Lovers) About the author: We are Urban Earth Lovers, a female-founded green start-up. We are one of the biggest zero waste shops in Lithuania. Apart from the store, we also work as an educational platform sharing our personal experience in how to live a sustainable and minimalist lifestyle. Our accessible eco-practices are for those dedicated to learning and sharing in their communities. Single-blade metal razors, once used by our grandparents, are making a stylish and sustainable comeback into the bathrooms of hipsters and urban minimalists alike. The average woman throws away 24 plastic razors and single-use blades yearly. These cannot be recycled, so they end up in landfills where they remain for centuries. Excessive plastic packaging never gets recycled either. Birds and wild animals get hurt by coming across the sharp blades, while the plastic seeps into the soil, the water, the ecosystem, and our food chain. More and more, people who care about the environment or simply appreciate quality things are choosing to say goodbye to singleuse razors and are choosing the timeless metal single-blade shaving alternative. These razors are unisex, sustainable, fully recyclable and, if well looked after, can be used for an entire lifetime, immensely cutting back on waste produced by shaving. Safe and pleasant shaving with such a razor requires some practice but this skill does not take long to develop. This new shaving routine allows you to slow down, concentrate on the moment, and spend some time with yourself. As odd as it sounds, conscious shaving using the right tools can become a truly pleasurable ritual. urbanearthlovers.com @urbanearthlovers

#CHANGINGENVIRONMENT

Author: Indrė Valantinaitė

THE BOOK

Title: Honeyland (2018)

Author Aistė Jurė

Photography by Neon

THE MOVIE