NO WORK, NO SHOP: Socio-Environmental Imagination and Pedagogies of Action

The Vera List Center is pleased to present NO WORK, NO SHOP: Socio-Environmental Imagination and Pedagogies of Action, the first in a series of public programs by VLC Boris Lurie Fellow Etcétera, on April 22 and 23, 2021.

In celebration of Earth Day, this lab brings together leading environmental thinkers, artists, collectives, and activists who counter the prevalent models of transnational, resource extractivist industries. Instead, they offer Buen Vivir, or “Good Living,” as an alternative approach to development, favoring ecological and communal principles.

Over the course of two days, the lab becomes a space for the exchange of knowledge, strategies, and actions of socio-environmental imagination developed in response to neo-extractivist models—a combination of neo-colonial, global exploitation of natural resources; the export of raw materials; and the devastating impact on both communities and the environment.

With its distinct sense of humor, and in true “errorist spirit,” Buenos Aires-based Etcétera launches each day of NO WORK, NO SHOP with a short video animation and performative reading, conjuring an environment where ideas and processes of resisting and imagining beyond the neo-extractivist model can be heard, seen, and felt. Subsequent iterations of Etcétera’s fellowship project, NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM - Protocols for Buen Vivir, will continue with performances, actions, video, correspondences, and laboratories deployed in different territories and temporalities through spring 2022. The resulting collection will help to raise new protocols for Buen Vivir.

The program features simultaneous English and Spanish interpretation.

Day one
Thursday, April 22, 4–5:30pm EDT

Keynote lecture by Eduardo Gudynas
Director and Senior Research at the Latin American Center on Social Ecology (CLAES)

Researcher and writer Eduardo Gudynas, who works closely with social movements that advocate for alternatives to industrial development, delivers the keynote lecture. He discusses such alternatives and “Buen Vivir” proposals, describing current-day extractivist strategies and “Buen Vivir” as opening up alternatives beyond modernity that explore other knowledges, feelings and approaches.

Day two
Friday, April 23, 11am–1pm EDT

On the second day, the lab features presentations and interventions around socio-environmental imagination as resistance to the advance of neo-extractivist policies. Artists and environmental justice activists working in North and Latin America generate an exchange about their experiences and communal knowledge, opening the possibility of protocols of Buen Vivir today. 

In conversation with Etcétera (Loreto Garín Guzmán and Federico Zukerfeld, Buenos Aires, Argentina) are artists Eduardo Molinari and Azul Blaseotto (La Dársena, Buenos Aires, Argentina); Steve Lyons, Director of Research, The Natural History Museum (Not an Alternative, Vashon, WA); and philosopher Brian Holmes and the artist Claire Pentecost (Environmental Laboratory, Chicago, IL).

NO WORK, NO SHOP: Socio-Environmental Imagination and Pedagogies of Action is presented by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School as the public program of the first chapter of a two-year project by Argentinian collective and Boris Lurie Fellow Etcétera. It is part of the VLC’s two-year focus theme As for Protocols and generously supported, in part, by the Boris Lurie Art Foundation. 

Etcétera
Formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists, poets, and performers. Since 2007 it has been led by co-founders Loreto Garín Guzmán (Chile) and Federico Zukerfeld (Argentina). In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist movement, an international organization that proclaims error as a philosophy of life. In addition to participating in exhibitions in museums and biennials, they often work with street art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial.

Vera List Center for Art and Politics
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is a research center and a forum for public scholarship on the intersection of art and politics. It was established at The New School in 1992—a time of rousing debates about freedom of speech, identity politics, and society’s investment in the arts. A pioneer in the field, the center is a nonprofit that serves a critical mission: to foster a vibrant and diverse community of artists, scholars, and policymakers who take creative, intellectual, and political risks to bring about positive change.