That kind personal transformation is much easier to attain with hands-on experience, says Ajay Rastogi, Philosopher and Applied Ethics practitioner, and founder of The Foundation for the Contemplation of Nature.

I had the good fortune to meet Ajay at the recent Tasting India Symposium in New Delhi, an event that brought together some of India’s brightest minds within food and sustainability. Like many of his contemporaries there, Ajay had left a successful career to go back to his home region and drive change from within. For Ajay that meant working together with the rural villagers of his homeland at the foothills of the Himalayas, in Uttarakhand.

The foundation aims to research and develop new models for Resilience through cultural exchange, by connecting villagers with people from the cities and other countries in residential homestays and programs such as yoga and meditation retreats. The Contemplation of Nature is threefold; immersion in nature, mindful meditation, and a hands-on experience of the rural ‘resilient’ life.

Resilience moves far beyond current definitions of sustainability. On a 2-week homestay you get to take part in everything that rural village life offers. Don’t worry – there is no enforced programme here. You are free to just rest and explore if that’s what you need, but guests usually end up getting quite involved with village life; learning about everything from organic seed banking, to preparing grain harvests, to tending to the village cows, cooking the local Kumaoni cuisine, or celebrating one of the many festivals that happen throughout India.

The Vrikshalaya centre is the headquarters and heart of the Foundation. It also offers longer term residencies for artists and designers who are interested in exploring the principles of resilience as part of their work.

Vrikshalaya means ‘Home of the Trees’ in Sanskrit – so outdoor activities such as rock-climbing, water rafting, camping and hiking are all part of nature immersion. The area is stunning, and the centre has been listed as one of ten top yoga venues in the world by the Guardian newspaper.

The aim of the foundation is to get people to experience three basic principles of Resilience that sustains all life; Dignity of Physical Work, Interdependence and Interconnectivity.

The Dignity of Physical Work
There is a long tradition in India of travelling to the Himalayas and rural areas to practice yoga and meditation as spiritual practice, but not physical work.

Ajay explains: “In India, we have such an inequitable society. The caste system is still deeply engrained in society and especially in rural life.”

Specific tasks, such as tailoring, traditional music, cleaning and different crafts, are often associated with specific castes. It’s considered servant’s work. And work is very gendered. Traditionally, women prepare the food, work in the fields and take care of the house. A recent survey revealed that women spend more time in the fields farming than men and bullocks combined!

“We never even imagined the value of cultural exchange with western visitors. Younger westerners in particular would challenge outdated ways of thinking about caste and gender,” explained Ajay. “They wanted to know why the village girls were fetching water and taking care of the cows after school, instead of playing cricket with boys.”

Also, the homestay families are from different castes. This was purposefully provocative on Ajay’s part. The foundation hosts communal events for the visitors and their host families, challenging these deeply engrained practices. Traditionally, lower castes do not eat together with higher castes. They do not attend the same meetings. Lower castes are even given separate plates and cutlery if they go to the house of a higher caste.

For the visitors, the learning curve is clear. Artisanal types of work and growing our own food re-connects our minds and hands. Doing something mindful with our hands together with others is natural and enjoyable.

This especially affected some of the younger visitors from the States, Ajay explained. “Their tears welled up as they realised they hardly ever spend time with their family. Here in the villages, shared activities, whether it’s farming, preparing millet, or making textiles, are a way to spend quality time with friends, family and neighbours. It’s fun to create something of value together.”

The repetitive actions of simple tasks also have a positive effect on the mind and body. When your mind can reach a level of sustained calmness, your body starts to do miraculous things. It’s called the ‘deep relaxation response’ in psychology. The stress hormone cortisol isn’t frantically released as our bodies aren’t in a fight or flee mode, aggravated by extremes in emotion. Combine this innate calmness with physical movement and you have a recipe for better mental and physical health.

Interdependence
Interdependence, is about people, reciprocity and solidarity. We are all used to financial transactions; I buy something and I pay for it, I own it. But it’s far smarter and more beneficial for the individual to systemically build society around shared spaces and shared resources. In the village, not everyone has to take care of their cows every day. They can share the duties, and reduce the daily work from once a day to once every 30 days.

Traditionally, when someone dies in India they are cremated on an open funeral pyre. Everyone visits the house in mourning to pay their respects and donate some wood. The job of collecting wood for the funeral pyre is taken care of by the community. Community takes care of necessities. It used to be the same with cooking for a wedding. Surplus food is also distributed throughout the community to those in need. Interdependence exists as a fact, so working with it is just common sense.

Interconnectivity
The third and final principle of the foundation is Interconnectivity. This is about striving for a harmonious coexistence with nature, as we rely on our environment for all the resources that keep us alive. Ajay’s hope is that people will take the realisation of interconnectivity back with them and apply it to their own lives.

As a modern, connected culture, we need to cultivate an attitude of care and understand where the things that sustain us come from and go to. Our resources are not limitless. Food, water and energy doesn’t just appear, just as clothes and products do not just appear. Our culture of waste has inherent challenges. All our actions have an impact and an intrinsic cost that someone, somewhere must pay. If we keep that connection in mind, the impact on our everyday choices can be profound. The proof of concept is in the eyes of all the people involved; the host families and the visitors. When the guests leave, says Ajay: “Every farewell is always tearful, always connected.”

The Foundation for the Contemplation of Nature 
Tasting India
Heavenly Himalayas 
India Tourist Board

Credits
Words by Tanya Kim Grassley

Photo credits
#1 View from Majkhali village. Photo by Dhirendra Bisht
#2 The Yoga Hall at the Vrikshalaya Centre. Photo by Dhirendra Bisht
#3 Ajay welcomes everyone to the Vrikshalaya Centre. Photo by Ajay Rastogi
#4/5 Morning meditation and yoga. Photo by Tamsin Chubb
#6 Celebrating Diwali. Photo by Pete Zhivkov
#7 Transplanting rice to Hudikia Ball music. Photo by Dhirendra Bisht
#8 Celebrating Spring. Photo by Jogendra Bisht
#9 A homestay family’s house. Photo by Dhirendra Bisht
#10 Home-stay mothers preparing food. Photo by Ajay Rastogi
#11 Carrying compost to the fields. Photo by Dhirendra Bisht
#12 Ajay gardening. Photo by Ajay Rastogi

Gallery view. Left: WTFFTW, acrylic and clear gesso on cotton, 20 panels, 160 x 185 cm, 2015. Centre: Seven days One Week (2015), 7 Cotton canvas Jackets, plastic buttons, and wooden hangers. Right: detail, A Study for “A Crack In The System” (2015).

Experimental Evidence showcases a new body of work that epitomizes Grubesic’s practice. Whether with sophisticated sultriness or sardonic wit, his work forms an ongoing commentary on the contradictory nature of global communications.

Earlier on in the year, The Forumist took a peek into Grubesic’s ‘WTF’ world to experience Grubesic’s way of seeing:

“I have always enjoyed all the double meanings around us; in commercial messages, street signs, product packaging, graffiti or in the stuff we share online. It’s very personal, how we filter and interpret all the messages that we are confronted with. For me, this is especially true since I moved to Istanbul. I read all the signs through the filter of my mother tongue, or languages other than Turkish. There is a lot to think about.”

A Study for ”A Crack In The System” (2015)
160 panels, each panel 22,5 cm diameter. Ca. 252 cm x 472,5 cm
Steel, Powder-coating, Acrylic paint and Acrylic Lacquer

The subject of conspiracy theories is a dominant theme in the exhibition. In his piece A Study for “A Crack In The System” Grubesic uses an actual code published on the British intelligence agency website to recruit new talent. The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had an open call asking “Can you crack it?”

GCHQ is one of the British intelligence and security organizations responsible for providing information and intelligence to the armed forces and government, alongside the infamous MI5 and MI6. Grubesic has taken the code and presented it on what appears to be enlarged typewriter keys, reminiscent of famous World War 2 code-breaking machine Enigma. Analogue or digital, all of our communications are form of decipherable, trackable and traceable binary code.

Grubesic explains his fascination with the code: “The recruitment ad was like an invitation to a secret club. It raised all sorts of questions: How do spy agencies clear applicants? How much information do they need? On what criteria do they judge people? It’s Orwellian but with a soft underbelly as no system is perfect – and if it is, is it justified? Edward Snowden changed his mind because he is human and not a robot. Government spy agencies are there to serve the people, but they are by nature secretive, and thus anti-democratic. This recruitment code is a way to show power, without revealing the nature or extent of that power.“

When you stand in front of the artwork, your mind quickly becomes confused. The sheer size of the piece is disturbing. The code is also slightly tilted to create another barrier to read the letters and numbers as text. Grubesic describes his experience of making the piece as an ‘endless psychosis.’

“To me the code is just DADADADA- it means nothing. I don’t speak this language. I had to continuously check that I was duplicating the code correctly. The constant recounting and re-organizing of the plates made me feel like I had some connection to its true meaning, without having any idea of what it means.”

DADADA (2015)
36 panels (each panel 4 cm x 22.8 cm) ca. 150 x 150 cm
Brass, Steel, Powder-coating, Alkyd, and Polyurethane.

A Study for ”A Crack In The System” also mirrors Grubesic’s DADADA piece. The Dada movement was often whimsical; they purposefully didn’t want to make sense – to anyone. In contrast, the GCHQ code is intended to only make sense for a select few.

“The Dada movement was inherently anti-war, but is often compared to the Futurist movement that was essentially a fascistic movement,” says Grubesic. For him, the oversimplification of complex ideas into polar opposites is terrifying. It is precisely that kind of polarization that gives rise to the conditions where Fascism thrives.

‘DA’ also means ‘yes’ in many Slavic languages, from Bosnian and Serbo-Croatian to Russian. DADADA, for Grubesic, is therefore an eternal affirmation. This repetition-based approach is used across the exhibition to emphasize and de-reconstruct messages into familiar patterns and codes- but look closely and you will see that the patterns are not coherent.

WTFFTW (2015)
20 Panels (each panel 45.5 cm x 31.5 cm) ca. 180 cm x 160 cm
Acrylic on clear gesso primed cotton canvas

In WTFFTW, Grubesic combines two well-used Internet age acronyms, repeating them over and over. WTF? For the win? Or Fuck the World!? Grubesic’s acronym paintings can be hung in any order. Any person with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) would immediately notice the anomalies in the patterns.

“The mind wants to have a system, but if the system is too constrained or predictable, the mind becomes inactive. It’s a metaphor for chaos and order. We need both, but if one takes over, we are doomed. Systems that strive for too much order are closed and oppressive. The system becomes self-serving, not allowing any space for human creativity,” says Grubesic.

This thought has been taken through to every detail of the exhibition. Even the gallery walls are painted in colors that are reminiscent of government institutions, hospitals and mental asylums.

“These paintings turned out to be very difficult to execute,” says Grubesic, “So the OCD joke really backfired on me.”

Left: Black Square (2015). 106 x 106 cm. Black gesso, synthetic tempera, synthetic pigment, Turkish blood. Centre: A Study for ”A Crack In The System” Right: Witches Brew (2015), Synthetic Polymer, Synthetic pigment, Plant material, Wood, Acrylic.

Grubesic’s Black Square is a particularly moving piece; a moment of visual silence in the exhibition, and a memorial for those who died in the Ankara bombing. Unlike any other black painting you may have seen, Grubesic’s Black Square contains human blood, donated from a friend. 2015 also marks the centenary of the original black square paintings by Kazimir Malevich, masterpieces of the Supramatist movement.

Grubesic was preparing his painting Zeros and Ones on the 10th October, 2015, the day of the bombing. Over a hundred people died in the attack. People changed their social media profile pictures to a black square in mourning.

Grubesic wanted to use blood to clearly connect the image to the bombing.

“It was a very spiritual and sad experience to make Black Square. I had 4 vials of precious blood from my friend. They say the Turkish flag is the color of blood, but on that day everything felt black,” says Grubesic.

Facing Black Square is Witches Brew, a set of pitch-black witch’s broomsticks. Where as Black Square is about a very specific event, Witch’s Brew represents “what’s cooking” – what the truth is beyond what is presented in the media.

I ask Grubesic what’s next for him.

“Somehow it feels important for me to stay here for now. Istanbul has always been the beautiful city full of intrigue, in books and films. It has that obvious attraction. The whole atmosphere here is electric right now. There is a huge sadness and suppressed anger that is tangible even if you don’t speak the language. But there is also so much joy here. In Sweden you are very disconnected from street life. You never have to talk to people. Here, people are out on the street selling tea and snacks, discussing life. There’s always something going on. Some of it is scary, it’s a city of polarities, but it’s a dynamic that empowers my creativity and makes me feel part of something bigger.”

Allen Grubesic: Experimental Evidence

Pi Artworks Istanbul
Istiklal Cad. Misir Apt. 163/4
Istanbul

7 November – 26 December 2015
10.00 – 19.00 (Except Sundays)

Credits:

Words by Tanya Kim Grassley

Coopamare’s members demonstrated their deeply specialised knowledge and wide range of skills for handling all types of recyclable materials, from the deconstruction of mobile phones and electronics, to identifying all types of metals and plastics. Every material you can think of that does not go to landfill passes through such co-operatives. They are grass-roots grids of co-creative, self-organised intelligence. However, although they are organised like the internet, they barely have any access to the internet. A huge opportunity is being missed: the social aspect of sustainability.

Ilkka called me to discuss what design should be doing. Theoretically, service design should help to increase the efficiency of the existing process, and extend the collection services to new customers, as well as lead to the design of new services. Product development could explore how low-value materials such as paper could be turned into a simple product, such as a packaging or insulation material, and sold back to existing business customers.

Communications design could get householders and other stakeholders to use their services, which in turn could increase recycling as a whole. Additional incentives could be designed into the system with the aim of meaningfully engaging local government, local businesses and global brands. Lawmakers also need more information so laws can support the collectors rather than hindering or even criminalising them. Industrial design got us into this mess. Transformation design can co-create the solutions.

Ilkka and I travelled back to São Paulo with Karina Vissonova, an innovation planner, to map out Coopamare’s process, as well as to offer suggestions for immediate improvement and work with Maria’s PhD students at the university.

Coopamare explained how they never used the words “waste” or “trash”, because so much waste is avoidable. They explained how, when a certain toxic blue dye is used on a fabric softener bottle, it cannot be recycled; how slightly reducing the thickness of the same bottle would dramatically reduce costs and waste; and how mobile phones are packed with lithium, gold and other valuable metals that could be easily reclaimed, but instead are being left to poison our environment.

“Please tell the companies,” said Coopamare’s members. One of them showed how he could list the characteristics of plastic or polymer just by listening to the sound it makes when crushed in his hand. Another explained that recycling mobile phones was their most lucrative form of income and wanted us to ask mobile-phone companies to send them old phones to dismantle. Another requested a simple machine that would help them disassemble aerosol cans for recycling.

There has been so much talk about design thinking in the past decade, but it’s design for the few. The world is suffering from a design divide: those who have access to smartphones and bottled water, and those who don’t. But design can help develop value networks that endorse meaningfulness, connectivity, value and identity for every stakeholder involved. The sum of all parts can easily enable incremental value for the network, and for society — if that is the shared vision.

Add information technology into the mix and the impact can be rapid and exponential. The key to genuine value generation lies in localised value-network innovation. As a network grows exponentially, so should new opportunities for mutual-value development.

With this thinking, Ilkka and I have gone on to set up the Club of Helsinki, a network of professionals working with innovation. Today, the Club of Helsinki is a non-profit organization offering strategic support for organisations that want to explore value-network innovation. The Club of Helsinki aims to connect networks together, support social entrepreneurship start-ups and raise awareness among organisations that are new to design services.

The Club of Helsinki continues its work with the catadores. Like angels, Coopamare and other recyclable-material pickers across the world help turn wasted trash into wanted resources. They perform an invaluable service to society, but just like angels, they are unrecognised and invisible.

Credits:

Words by Tanya Kim Grassley

Portrait by Pierre Björk