Person /CZ

Meno Speakera is a design researcher working with plants blablabla. While acknowledging such critiques, we can’t afford to accept that ‘designing for better worlds’ is futile and impossible. In the times of looping crises, we can’t fall into the trap of passive skepticism and lethargy. Deeply aware of the privileges and biases hindering our perspectives of what such worlds could and should be, we are calling out the Uroboros: the ancient serpent eating its own tail that aptly captures our current global conditions as well as our attempts at finding productive responses. Rather than aiming to untangle the serpent and solve any of the problems it encircles, we wish to explore and challenge the social, political, technological, and epistemological circumstances scaffolding its pathways. Summoning the Uroboros collectively and carefully, we hope to better understand its dark loopings and engage in productive speculations on how things could actually – not just in principle – be different. The 2020 Uroboros festival presented participatory works by art/design researchers and practitioners of diverse backgrounds that engage critically, experimentally, and materially with our troubling global conditions, aiming to actuate a positive change.