Apply here for GOSH's 2022 Regional Events Funding! (Round 1)

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1. Name of organization “The Foundry”

2. Email address (or preferred and reliable way of official contact)

foundry@bravosfoundry.com / Paulapin24@gmail.com / dennisselbst@hotmail.com

3. Tell us about your organization.

The Foundry is a non-profit organization based in a previously abandoned Galician village. It functions both as a residency and as a project space. It subscribes to the ideals of self-organization, and has the following three objectives:

1. Organizing activities in the field of the arts, science and humanities outside of traditional institutions, focusing on critical discourse.

2. Promoting the exchange of ideas and intellectual collaboration outside of the constraints imposed by state and market.

3. Increasing self-sufficiency, sustainability, and an awareness of the environment using appropriate technology and open source as main resources.

Taking into account this context, our aim is to reinforce the capacity to generate networks flowing from rural to urban context supporting non hierarchy and democratic exchanges of knowledge and practices that can enable new and sustainable models within rural contexts. According to that we consider that the new trans-disciplinary creative sectors in which we are entangled can have a huge and positive impact in the creation of this new paradigm. https://bravosfoundry.com/

Activities from the network of regional and international collaborators:
2019: Thinking Figuratively, a workshop organized by Hansun Hsiung and Roland Bolz.
2020: Pathfinder; a meditative audio experience by Yuri Tuma.
Edible / medicinal plants workshop by Botánica Silvestre.
The Commons; Between Tragedy and Recuperation.
Open rehearsal of the Butoh (Japanese dance).
Intergalactic Memorial Carnival for David Graeber.
2021: Rethinking education through Open Source and Transfeminist practices by Paula Pin.
Metal Garden, workshop on Metal.
There is no Time, Only Geometry; Workshop to build a geodesic Domo.
2021: Sharing experiences about Alternative education and Immigration. Cristina Castro, Dennis Schep, Stefania Fernandez.
Open Source Hardware hacking, with Paula Pin.
Workshop on Mushroom Cultivation.
Earth and freedom; Event with one Zapatista delegation.
During 2021 we host the meeting from our expanded regional network Aldear.
2022: How to build a microscope to identify microorganism on the earth.

Aside from organizing activities at the Foundry some members of the organization have collaborated with institutions outside of Galicia in the field of Open Source and Free and Open Technologies. Here are some example:

• Elaboration of Seminar “Biotranslab”. Science from a transfeminist perspective. UDK Berlin.

• Elaboration of the Molecul.lab Biology program/ teacher. Etopia Zaragoza.

• Coordinator of the Woman & Technological Program Cooperativa La Fábrica. BCN

• Coordination and hosted https://transhackfeminist.noblogs.org/ at Calafou.
  PECHBLENDA | LABORATORI INTERDISCIPLINAR D'EXPERIMENTACIÓ BIO-ELECTRO-QUÍMICA. Hardlab TransHackFeminista [Laboratori de Hardware Lliure]

• Coordination of Hangar Wetlab during the program Prototypome where we collectively build the wet lab that promotes transhckfeminist practices and beyond, preparing the space and context for the Biofricition Lab on 2020/2021.BioAutonomy - Hackteria Wiki
  Prototyp-ome autoresidence - prototyp_ome

• Seminar on BioAutonomy and Free Hardware. Master of Biotechnology of the Technical University- Slovenia.

• Founding member and committee member at The Public School Berlin, organizing various classes and providing a framework for autodidactic activities.

• “Affect – Capital – Critique”, workshop at the Humboldt University Berlin (co-organizer).

• “Gastfeindschaft”, conference at the Free University Berlin (co-organizer).

• “Roundtable: Critique”, roundtable discussion at Spektrum Berlin (organizer and moderator).

• Initiator and co-editor of the blog: www.literaturwissenschaft-berlin.de ok

• Seminar based on the use of open technology for the achievement of Bioautonomy, realization of solar panels with organic and recycled materials.New Digital Media and Electronics Seminar.

• Participation at GOSH 2018 and at UROS project during 2021.

4. Does your organization have representation for a marginalized demographic due to factors such as, but not limited to, race, ability, place of birth, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class situation or other identification? If so, how?

The Foundry is situated in Lugo in rural Galicia, a region struggling with depopulation. Bravos, the nearby town, had over 1000 inhabitants in the 18th century; now about 90 remain, and many houses are abandoned. By developing the project here, we contribute to the vitalization of a region that is slowly turning into a museum.

Aside from that, there is thematic focus on transdisciplinary feminism and post-humanism. While this focus is not adequately grasped by identity-political categories like race or gender, we hope it leads to the subversion of hegemonic structures inscribed in the binarisms upholding many of these categories. Our interest lies in the development of tools and technologies that subvert contemporary structures of domination, exploitation and marginalization, not in those that reproduce it.

We seek to develop a more sustainable environment by opening up our practices based on a free culture framework, generating networks and interest around them, enabling a flow of exchange of innovation across creative sectors focusing on revaluation of rural contexts and its knowledge heritage.

5. What is the event about, and what do you want to achieve with it?

The event aims at addressing the lack of women, queer, trans and diversity in technological fields in general and hacking more specifically. But even more so, it aims at creating a community that critically assesses the hegemonic narratives around technologies, the modernity aspects of its underlining Western assumptions and its inherent capitalist inflections, among others.

The main purpose of the event is to organize a series of workshops in different sites in rural Galicia to develop kits that focus on interacting with the natural environment in two fields: energy and biology. In the first, the focus lies on harvesting the energy of the natural environment, primarily of water and wind. These power kits will be scalable and can be used both as pedagogical material and to set up site-specific power plants in different sites as well. There is a counter-infrastructural component to this work: one possible consequence would be to empower people to generate their own energy instead of relying on large and often extractive companies.

The biological kits will develop instruments related to the field of biohacking to investigate ecological practices that works with biological materials, such as bacteria, living organisms and life processes.

Traditional knowledge about fermentation and pickling can now be approached from a minor science perspective, using self-made microscopes, centrifuges, bioreactors and PCR machines to better understand our interactions with the microbial beings that live around us and inside of us.

Recently, transdisciplinary relationships between art, science and technology have led to the emergence of hybrid contexts that not only provided a new conceptual and practical framework for artistic research, but also provoked paradigm shifts that affect other areas of knowledge / cultural areas. We are interested in connecting sustainability and BioArt practices to improve the transmission of knowledge and build new realities through this intersection.

In order to pursue real changes that help to create a more just world, we need to think differently about ourselves, the world and our connections within it, and apply that thinking to artistic educational practice and systemic change. We say this not only to emphasize the thinking and perspectives of communities of practice, but also to apply the extra step taken by critical posthumanism. The collective can be rethought in terms of human and non-human groupings in which all elements share agency, that is to say, treat each other non-hierarchically. This is why we think it is necessary to inscribe our practices in transdisciplinary and post-humanist perspectives.

Becoming transdisciplinary implies attitudes such as adaptability, flexibility, creativity, openness and a deep interest in building bridges and venturing to approach an object of study or problem from (in)discipline. Transdisciplinarity configures a different point of integration and a vision that is supported by many disciplines, without being reduced to them. A transdisciplinary identity will make those who participate in the generation of knowledge about a specific problem be the co-producers of hybrid forms of knowledge. This allows multiple voices to become legible as voices of education.

The goals for the event can be summarized as follows:

• Find points of intersection between traditional knowledges and contemporary practices of self-care, feminism, DIY and open-source technology.

• Promote easily accessible open-source technologies that can be applied in multidisciplinary fields and enhance the inclusiveness of marginalized collectives.

• Foster the adoption of collective practices of mutual self-care. Generate networks from the margins through collaborative research, collective education and social development.

• To work on human and non-human alliances and solidarity through DIY/DIWO/DIT biotechnology, artistic and cultural practices.

• Re-visit, re-think, co-design and co-develop processes, tools and technologies for biological exploration, from a transhackfeminist perspective, and focusing on Open-Source Science for art and natural science topics and experimental notions of Health, Life, Body, Artistic Research and Critical Practices.

• To provide artists, scientists, creators and cultural organizations with tools, methodologies and good practices in order to properly address the creation of common cultural spaces for the generation of transversal knowledge in Bioarts practices, environmental issues and ecology.

To achieve these goals, we propose to elaborate a Critical Tool Kit that provides material and theoretical resources to change the paradigm of traditional education. The kit will combine DIT (do it together) materials in order to explore environments and help users to form a deeper understanding of nature and the beyond. This tool kit will be open art/sci, built to be modified by students, artists, creators and cultural workers with the aim of opening new ideas and unforeseen applicability.

To achieve these goals, we propose to elaborate a Critical Tool Kit that provides material and theoretical resources to change the paradigm of traditional education. The kit will combine DIT (do it together) materials in order to explore environments and help users to form a deeper understanding of nature and the beyond. This tool kit will be open art/sci, built to be modified by students, artists, creators and cultural workers with the aim of opening new ideas and unforeseen applicability.

6. Which of the three levels of funding would you like to apply for? (in round 1 only USD $9910 is available for applications, in further rounds $3000, $6000, or USD $9910 will be available)

$9910. The main activities will take place at the Foundry, but we will organize interventions in other regional spaces as Fur Alle Falle, Casa do Río and will produce a kit that can be used as an educational tool in public schools and beyond.

7. What is the funding for? Describe your budget. List what you are going to spend it on and how.
   

   

8. How will you share the outcomes of this event. What documentation will result that will this project benefit the community as a whole? (videos? photos? a how-to? innovative hardware designs?)

• A critical tool kit with an instruction book and materials list will be the consolidation of the project for future use and dissemination. The whole kit, the materials and the book will be done with Open Source Tools and will be useful for inter-generational students from 14 years old in advance.
• Photo and video documentation of the whole event will be shared on social media platforms.
• DIY video tutorials will be shared on social media
• We will update a new WiKi to document all the processes.
• A general report shall be written and submitted to GOSH.

9. How would your event address GOSH’s values of diversity and inclusion?

• Analyze and shape the terrain for network culture, aiming to establish a constant
  dialogue, building cooperative models as a result of symbiotic process connecting
  rural and urban systems.

• Contribute to the formation of a culture of sustainability within the creative sectors and their practices, focusing on transfeminist practices we will ensure diversity and inclusion of minored collectives.

• Generate support mechanisms and infrastructure for creative initiatives that strengthen the capacity of rural organizations under a transfeminist and ecologic perspective.

10. Are there any conflicts of interest that you wish to declare?

Not that we know of.