Participant Creations
Discover the participant experience and creations in the video below. A story in which young people set the scene for tomorrow's society. A first attempt to define our new rules.
The Unthinkable Experiment Chapter: Future Garden
By Emile von Schomberg, facilitator
Stepping through The Ark – the thought-provoking entrance to LABIOMISTA – demands a certain courage to break free from convention. This summer, it served as the metaphorical immigration checkpoint for 24 young, curious minds from around the globe to migrate from society into a world distinctly their own. The fourth chapter of The Unthinkable Experiment had begun: a pluralistic space that borrowed just 2 weeks of society's clock. This year's topic, 'Future Garden’, fittingly unfolded in the beautiful park, offering a playful yet profound twist.
Little did the participants know that looking for structure in a project aimed at dismantling structure would expose them to the first of many contradictions: the suffocation of freedom. Fortunately, divided into three groups of eight, an initial three-day ideation phase in the so-called thinking boxes of LaMouseion quickly turned frustration into thriving markets of radically free ideas on what ‘future garden’ should embody. Unthinkable societies were in the making, guided by unqualified yet ambitiously free politicians. There were no longer any reference points for them to fall back on – no structures, frameworks, or advice from relatives or friends. Perhaps for the first time, they were alone with themselves, and their innermost voices began to clamor for self-manifestation. As if muffled by the bricks of the homes they built around their domesticated souls, their cries would echo: “Who am I?”
Yet it didn’t take long for the Ubuntu spirit at LABIOMISTA to reshape the group of self-seeking hearts. As famously stated by Koen Vanmechelen himself, every organism needs another organism to survive. A packed weekend-program in Brussels brought all three groups together, immersing them in the city’s own ‘future gardens’ through inspiring workshops and project visits that reimagined the use of public spaces. After a long weekend of inspiration, a team of experienced experts further stimulated the group upon their return to Genk with inspirational feedback on their initial ideations.
It was time for the last four-day co-creation phase, and a strong 24-headed community feel was formed – a mix of inspiring and potentially dangerous magic. What does it really mean to be a community? Does it mean inclusivity is still embraced as a communal value, or does this inclusivity naturally morph into exclusivity? Is there a risk of inbreeding as diversity becomes diffused and taken for granted? Does it mean empowering individual responsibility, or does it imply its diffusion? This powerful interplay between the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ revealed relevant questions throughout the project’s progression.
For some participants, the end creation mattered deeply; for others, it was really about the process they were undergoing. For some, it was about art and science; for others, it was about space and time. For some, it was about conceptual ideation; for others, it was all about concrete action. For some, it was about adulthood and ownership of life; for others, it was about honoring their inner child. For some, it was about bridging the present with the future; for others, it was about understanding the history of bridging the past to the present. The final vernissage reflected some of this beautiful diversity and everything in between.
As much as the participants didn’t know whether this project was about them or their creations for society, everyone agreed ‘something’ happened. We may question what role their initial proposed solutions will play for future gardens. But after all, the seed of every revolution was never planted where it was meant to grow. Perhaps the real seeds were not those the participants could conceive in two weeks’ time, but the 24 young curious minds themselves, who, unknowingly, have been fertilized as emerging leaders for a better society. Indeed, the 24 now fertilized souls – replanted in their local habitat – have already pollinated a truly global spirit, once unthinkable, into their local environments.