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Reflections in Times of Quarantine

Kara Rooney, Still from POESÍA EN ACCIÓN / ACCIÓN POÉTICA

Education
For decades we’ve known our education model is overdue. The industrial age is long gone, along with the need for factory workers.

Now is our chance to Re-View
The classroom layout
Teacher’s roles and hierarchy 
The learning curriculum and methods to embed knowledge

We are free to reinvent education

Architecture and Nature
For decades we’ve known how the environment has a big mental and physical impact on people.

We keep on building smaller homes to the point that we repurpose bathrooms into office spaces during a pandemic lockdown. On top of it, public space usage incorporates increasingly restrictive rules.

Now is our chance to Re-View
Additional local gardens and parks in urban areas
Minimal standards for livable housing 
Rules for access to public space
Homelessness

We are free to adjust housing policies and urban planning

Art Space
For decades we’ve known the European White Cube is an obsolete ideological art space.
It works for framed well behaved Modern Art but it is far from ok for Contemporary Art

Now is our chance to Re-View
Museum and art gallery spaces 
New virtual space as art support and art medium
Public art projects

We are free to reinvent the art exhibition spaces and expand public art programs

Diversity
For decades we’ve known migration movements, spurred by various kinds of oppressions, have  generated equity problems in urban spaces throughout the world

Now is our chance to Re-View
Provenance of wealth due to the enslavement of people and the looting of their property 
Policies that treat people differently based on their ethnic group
Outstanding social debts to groups abused by those holding more power

We are free to come to terms with our past and unify

The Inner, Outer, Virtual Spaces

For decades we’ve known people’s inner space needs attention 
Techniques of visualizations, meditation and yoga have become mainstream. A virtual cultural world is being created based on our perceived inner and outer worlds and their inter-relationship

Now is our chance to Explore
The inner space as part of our daily routine
The usage of virtual space to advance humankind
The interconnectedness of humankind 

We are free to reinvent urban, cultural and virtual spaces that better connect to our inner space

Community
For decades we’ve known we have gone too far with our individualities, and we’ve been trying to organize ourselves back into communities, even overcoming physical distance in order to re-connect. 

Now is our chance to Establish
Tighter family and friend groups (virtually if necessary)
Professional courses and activities that connect people in new ways
Groups that extend geographical and knowledge boundaries 

We are free to be interdependent and that is ok

For decades we’ve forgotten our fundamental essentials. We’ve kept things safe by providing a dosage of unrealistic certainty, control, normality.

There is an opportunity now to review, explore and establish new choices and move forward with renewed standards. We may be free to reinvent ourselves. Are you?

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