Traders, Autumn school

Abstract

The TRADERS Autumn School 2015 (www.tr-aders.eu) examines the crossovers between participatory approaches in art and design and reconfiguring labour in post-Fordist Genk. If, as Hannah Arendt (1958) argues, there is a difference between labour (the biologically necessary efforts for maintaining life and body) and work (the specifically human endeavour to make a lasting and durable cultural world), the questions we pose are the following: what, if any, is the (critical) role of participatory art and design in reconfiguring labour and work? How can, and should, work be reinvented? And how can we support a debate concerning contemporary labour, forms of production and new types of creative work? We will explore these questions specifically within the context of Genk (Belgium), which, since the recent closure of a Ford manufacturing plant, has ushered in, quite literally, an era of post-Fordism. 40 international design researchers addressed these questions via lectures and participatory design working tables, leading to four design proposals that are exhibited and taken further in our Living Lab, The Other Market (https://deanderemarkt.wordpress.com/).