The Museum of Care is thought of as an experiment of being open to everyone. People may come in and go out, as they please, without any obligation.
This is a Freedom part of it that sometimes conflicting with the Care. Sometimes it could be disturbing.
One problem: an open mailing list on which trolls or bullies can appear.
It’s the same with Open Assemblies, where potentially anyone can come in and start insulting members or demanding to vote and changing whatever they want to change, calling it a “democracy.”
One way to protect the Museum, without losing its openness, is the concept of the “room.”
Each room has its own curator, who decides how to run it.
The rooms don’t owe anything to the Museum. They may leave anytime. The Museum is here to help them, take Care of them, not judge them, not give them grades, or police them. I think of it as unconditional minimal services.
Unfortunately, the Museum cannot provide an unconditional minimum income for its members because we would have to extend the Museum’s walls to the whole world.
Since David’s death, I have, almost on autopilot, entered into a great deal of administrative work to create the Museum.
In fact, it’s not the kind of work I’m comfortable with or enjoy, but thanks to the help of many people, the infrastructure is in place. It is minimal, and it should remain minimal.
Since the Museum of Care is not a corporation or institution, it does not need to grow, absorb, and increase turnover or compete with anyone else in any kind of achievement.
The Museum’s task is much more ambitious. It supposes to help projects which are working on changing public perceptions about crucial issues. For example, the guest curators at the Museum of Care are preparing a map connecting non-institutional educational initiatives. All the efforts that go into this are infinitely dear to the Museum.
On the other hand, as we know from history, real change does not come from large collectives or parties that spend their energy on power games but from small, mobile affinity groups that trust each other.
A very small group of people did all the work in creating an infrastructure of the Museum of Care.
Therefore, our small group of housekeeping committee will not exceed 5 to a maximum of 6 people.
The mailing list will be open, but we will introduce pre-moderation, which Simone has agreed to do.