FRAMETALKS DAY 4: FREEDOM (FREIHEIT)
The question of (human) FREEDOM is as old as humankind, and is still one of the most debated - and most important - questions of today. How do different attitudes and perspectives on this question shape our world, and are we free to change them?
What is freedom? Is there freedom, or do we have to create it? (How) can we be free at all, and what does freedom have to do with responsibility? Today we explored these and other questions through the deerskin frame. While the views on our 'reality of the day' were varied, there was much agreement that freedom is indeed possible. But maybe not so much as 'freedom from', for example from our responsibility for others and the world around us, but rather as a 'freedom to': to act out of connectedness, empathy, and maybe even love, the reality of which we explored yesterday. What we need in order to do this - the capacities we need to develop - seems to be one of the biggest tasks for us humans in the world today. As our potential for freedom is as much a gift with which we can begin to shape a more socially and ecologically just and viable future, as it is the source for great suffering of both the human and the 'other-than-human' world.
Through the deerskin frame we looked at the Fulda channelled by walls, which nevertheless formed one of the few places in Kassel which allow for 'the freedom to fall into the water' without being restricted by fences. We looked at the local tax office and wondered what money for work had to do with human (un)freedom, and whether other economic forms could possibly change that. We looked at how the apparent freedom to do anything we like impacts on how we (mis)shape urban environments, and how individual 'freedom of movement' may be an exclusive 'right'. And all the time we looked at our own views, attitudes and values with which we approach such questions, and how we might start to come together to think and act in ways that are more in tune with each other and the world. So that freedom really is a question of peace, as one of our youngest participants put it.
Tomorrow, we will look at FUTURE. Join us between 10 and 12, and 18 and 21 hours at the Neue Brüderkirche, and between 12:45 and 17:30 on the streets of Kassel for an exploration of this last reality of the week, before we embark on a journey of further reflection and distillation of our perceptions, thoughts and insights on the weekend.
ALL WELCOME!
