The Vera List Center is pleased to present NO WORK, NO SHOP: Socio-Environmental Imagination and Pedagogies of Action, the first in a series of public programs by VLC Boris Lurie Fellow Etcétera, on April 22 and 23, 2021.

In celebration of Earth Day, this lab brings together leading environmental thinkers, artists, collectives, and activists who counter prevalent models of transnational, resource extractivist industries. Instead, they offer Buen Vivir, or “Good Living,” as an alternative approach to these developmental ideologies, rejecting the dynamics of extractivism in favor of ecological and communal principles.

Over the course of two days, the lab presents itself as an exchange of socio-environmental knowledge, strategies, and actions, developed in response to neo-extractivist models—a combination of neo-colonial, global exploitation of natural resources; the export of raw materials; and the devastating impact on both communities and the environment.

These laboratories are part of Etcétera’s fellowship project, NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM – Protocols for Buen Vivir, which analyzes the current neocolonial character of extractivism, including through what the collective refers to as “cognitive extractivism”: the extraction of knowledge and social imagination. The notion of “Good Living” is at the core of their practice and proposition for creating art, culture, and knowledge through non-extractivist approaches that are informed by Indigenous and other communal perceptions of life.

With its distinct sense of humor, and in true “errorist spirit,” Buenos Aires-based Etcétera launches each day of NO WORK, NO SHOP with short video animation and performative reading, conjuring an environment where ideas and processes of resisting and imagining beyond the neo-extractivist model can be heard, seen, and felt. Subsequent iterations of Etcétera’s fellowship project will continue with performances, actions, video, correspondences, and laboratories deployed in different territories and temporalities through Spring 2022. The resulting collection of materials, stories, thoughts, images, and actions will help to raise new protocols for Buen Vivir.

The program features simultaneous English and Spanish interpretation.

Day One
Thursday, April 22, 4–5:30pm EDT

Keynote Lecture by Eduardo Gudynas
Director and Senior Research at the Latin American Center on Social Ecology (CLAES)

Researcher and writer Eduardo Gudynas, who works closely with social movements that advocate for alternatives to industrial development, delivers the keynote lecture. He discusses such alternatives and “Buen Vivir” proposals, describing current-day extractivist strategies and “Buen Vivir” as opening up alternatives beyond modernity that explore other knowledges, feelings, and approaches.

Gudynas is introduced by Professor Mariana Amatullo, Vice Provost for Global Executive Education and Online Strategic Initiatives at The New School. Brief closing remarks are offered by Professor Leonardo E. Figueroa Helland, Chair, Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, Schools of Public Engagement; Chair, Indigeneity, Decolonization and Just Sustainability Section, Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School.

Day Two
Friday, April 23, 11am–1pm EDT
On the second day, the lab features presentations and interventions around socio-environmental imagination as resistance to the advance of neo-extractivist policies. Artists and environmental justice activists working in North and Latin America generate an exchange about their experiences and communal knowledge, opening the possibility of protocols of Buen Vivir today. 

In conversation with Etcétera (Loreto Garín Guzmán and Federico Zukerfeld, Buenos Aires, Argentina) are artists Eduardo Molinari and Azul Blaseotto (La Dársena, Buenos Aires, Argentina); Steve Lyons, Director of Research, The Natural History Museum (Not an Alternative, Vashon, WA); and philosopher Brian Holmes and the artist Claire Pentecost (Watershed Art & Ecology, Chicago, IL).

NO WORK, NO SHOP: Socio-Environmental Imagination and Pedagogies of Action is presented by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School as the public program of the first chapter of a two-year project by Argentinian collective and Boris Lurie Fellow Etcétera. It is part of the VLC’s two-year focus theme As for Protocols and generously supported, in part, by the Boris Lurie Art Foundation.