Dear all,
Welcome to our newsletter!
MARCH AT THE MUSEUM OF CARE
Pedagogies of Care
March 28 / 20:00 London time
Hosted and curated by Andris Brinkmanis, this series of encounters will be designed around the legacies of historical figures – from Francisco Ferrer Guardia, Asja Lacis, Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin, to Ivan Illich, Palle Nielsen, bell hooks and David Graeber, among others. Be it theater, art, anarchist thought or anthropology, many of these important personalities share common aspirations.
This series of talks will explore the topic in collaboration with invited guests as well as the community around the David Graeber Institute.
This group meets on the last Thursday of each month.
Housekeeping Committee
This is a group of people who assist room curators in taking care of their rooms. If you have the time and interest to help someone realize their vision, their educational efforts, please join us. Write us an email if you want to join in. The next one takes place on 27 March at 18:00. We will send an agenda a day before the event to the invited participants.
SPRING AT THE MUSEUM OF CARE / DAVID GRAEBER INSTITUTE
The Madagascar Group
Curated by Ellen Judd and Vassily Pigounides
based on David Graeber’s book The Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar
As we are figuring out the best format for this group, we think about something of a “long reading group” in which the reading and the discussion are tightly interwoven. The participants of the group will be invited to collectively read and discuss small parts of the text and to discuss it directly after, making the reading a vital part of the dialogue and transcending the gap between the “homework” (individual reading) and “classwork” (discussion). Let us know if you want to join the curators in preparation of this group (email us at contact@davidgraeber.org, subject line: The Madagascar Group)
The Illustrated / Graphic Novel Project & The Democracy Reading Group
Curators TBC
based on David Graeber’s books The Democracy Project and Direct Action
A word from the curators:
Dear fellow readers of Graeber. We invite you to bring a story, an idea, an anecdote, from Graeber’s writings or from your own life that reflects a concept from Graeber’s writings. In this forum we invite you to share your story and then we will be joined by (someone with expertise in scenario creation) who will introduce some simple scenario or storyboarding templates to put these stories into. The idea is that this would start a move toward creating a selection of stories towards creating a graphic novel compilation.
The creation of the graphic novels will run in parallel with the Democracy Reading Group, which will have its first meeting on April 14th (more details to follow in the next newsletter).
Our past newsletters described past and future events and events run by MoC or DGI.
Here is the new section:
FUTURE PLANS
Here we will share ideas about projects that are not yet in place and still open for discussion, participation and change. Everyone can join in, offer their vision or make their own version!
We start to list possible events from September 2024.
Events around Carnival
Carnival is at the heart of our Museum of Care and the DGI. So from September 2024 onwards, it is essential that we continue with our Carnivalesque lifestyle.
We are very much looking for great people to run a series of events, talks, and reading groups related to Mikhail Bakhtin.
We also plan to continue with workshops on masks and costume making.
Our ongoing exhibition Carnival and War is waiting for new participants and new works.
DGI Movie Theater
We will continue to work on organizing DGI Movie Theater! Got a brilliant idea from Avi – a collaborative viewing and discussion of one of David Graeber’s favorite TV series – Buffy the Vvampire Sslayer.
Apt Art Exhibition and Workshops
Around Citties Made Differently and escpecially Playgrounds.
Please keep an eye on our website and social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and MastodonMastadon) for more information about our upcoming events – and reach out to us if you have ideas for current and future projects via contact@davidgraeber.org.
MARCH AT THE DAVID GRAEBER INSTITUTE
The highlight of the previous month was definitely the second Seminar of Care, hosted by the David Graeber Institute, where we were joined by SIlvia Federici, who will run one more Seminar with us in June 2024 during our discussion circles in Saint Vincent (see the David Graeber Institute’s website for more information). We welcome you to share your thoughts on how the Seminar can be developed (email us at contact@davidgraeber.org, subject line Next Seminar of Care).
The Care Reading list, featuring two texts by Siylvia Federici
Collective Writing Groups
(by invitation only) / March 14
Curated collectively by the Housekeeping Committee of the Museum of Care
A closed (by invitation only) brainstorming session to think about how to make a collective writing workshop based on some of David’s texts (including texts from the archive). We will also talk about a “long reading group” on David’s Madagascar notebooks, the dialogical nature of writing itself, the plans to launch a ‘play’ group or writing on the margins. We will also go through the existing examples of how people come together to write.
Let us know if you want to join by sending an email to contact@davidgraeber.org (subject line: Collective Writing Group).
The Virtues of Diogenes, a three-part adventure
March 21 / 20:00 London time
Curated by Avi
In the first session in February, anthropologists Avi KBH and Anni Kajunus dove into the discussion of the relations between Diogenes’ philosophy, interpersonal status dynamics, and play.
In the second session, we will explore the world of Diogenes’s philosophy by creatively comparing Diogenes’ Cynics with his contemporary Xenophon’s Cynegeticus. We will speculate on both these dog-associated philosophies and imagine what they might tell us about the worlds and the ecologies they imply. We will be supported in this by anthropologist Avi KBH, who has analysed the history of recreational hunting in Europe and has published an ethnographic answer to ‘why people hunt’. You can also listen to an audio version of Avi’s paper here: Part 1 and Part 2. Avi will unpack how Xenophon’s Cynegeticus and recreational hunting have fundamentally shaped notions of freedom, virtue, and salvation through ‘nature’ in comparison to Diogenes’ notions of virtue. This will be followed by a discussion where participants will explore how the dog-associated philosophy of Diogenes suggests alternative human-nature possibilities. During the session Avi will also draw on chapter 3 of his 1018 doctoral thesis that covers the transformation in human-nature relations before and after the Cynics and Stoics.
The third and final session will be held on April 11.
See you soon,
Your Museum
