Tribe Against Machine 2019 X Chongqin, Ronchung

When

• For the Chongqin event, the original dates were supposed to be December 27, 2019 to January 5th, 2020, but unfortunately now we have to postpone it.

• For the Tibet event, we need to know when everybody would be free to go, approximately around March 2020.

Where

1. Tashi Gatsen Charity School, Qinhai

The charity school project aims to house and educate some of the most desperate and unfortunate Tibetan children from poor families and orphans in Nangqian County, enabling them to become contributing members of society in the future. The project seeks financial support from individual and organizations in order to improve the facilities and environment provided to the children in our care.
https://www.facebook.com/agnuk123/

The Greenhouse built by Wei and Wiriyar Rottanasuwan
In Tibet, Qinghai, vegetables are scarce, 90% of the vegetables are imported, so the local community hopes to solve this shortage by constructing a greenhouse that can resist -30 degrees Celsius in winter time. We have developed this underground style greenhouse, inspired by the pithouse:
https://shihweichieh.com/Greenhouse-Nangqen-on-going-research-project

video clips of the school:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/10wUOJd2pkT06eXDjlmGDfxTz4mIlai3R

2. 榮昌夏布小鎮 Chongqin, Ronchong - the town of the “summer textile” (the alias of ramie)

Ron Chung is Chine Yang’s new site, a small town located at the edge of Chongqin 重慶, the town was famous for Ramie industries decades ago. Now the government has refurnished it into a cultural town and Chine’s shop will officially open soon. She is happy to help host a camp there as a collaborator, and she will take care of the accommodation and food, however she proposed to organize a sellable workshop program for the public. Chin Ma is the coordinator for this camp establishment, Ma is from Red Town Shanghai 上海紅坊.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingafterdeer/albums/72157704896962832
Redtown DAC: www.redtownsh.com

Who

invitation list for Chongqin:

• Audrey Briot
• Amor Muñoz
• Carolina Vieira
• Ferrial Afiff
• Dr. Marc R. Dusseiller
• Satriya Wibowo
• Shih Wei Chieh
• Sherry Chang
• Ketin Chen
• Wisnu Wisdontio
• Victoria Manganiello

Tashi Gatsen Professional School (the orphanage)
Wiriyar Rattanasuwan (the greenhouse project initiator)
Lihan Workshop 野桐工坊: https://www.facebook.com/LIHANGWORKSHOP/
Chin Ma 馬青, 上海紅坊 Red Town Shanhai: www.redtownsh.com
Chine Yang 感懶樹: http://chineramie.com/wapn.asp
e-Textile Summer Camp
e-Textile Spring Break
Hackteria
陳科廷 Ketin, 採集人共作室 Collectors: https://www.facebook.com/ktingchen
https://www.facebook.com/collectingbeings/?eid=ARCuwaIfg4EIqXhuX1JvwWN4Bmc3iwKmB6be01kZK6HJTWYhGkfaEJ6iL8FQ_G_tOA8oN_lTToMZ8jSZ&timeline_context_item_type=intro_card_work&timeline_context_item_source=100000449117328&fref=tag

Why

A multi-disciplinary camp across culture, class, politics, social experience, looking for possibilities to make common ground for art and other disciplines such as charities, community development, science, material lab etc. We look for an ecology that doesn’t completely rely on the capital world, and also can generate new contexts and a good interaction between contemporary and old at the border of the old world.
一個跨領域、文化、政治、社會意識的工作營營，尋找藝術和其他類型計劃共地的可能性、如慈善類型的，並自「營」的模式創建出不完全依賴於資本系統的生態圈。

Possible funding, grants

Asia Europe Foundation, ASEF, mobility grant, deadline 15. June
Pro Helvetia for swiss participation abroad
Pro Helvetia Shanghai:
The previous attempts, ideas for funding application in early of the 2019

The Greenhouse project takes root in a charity initiative by the artist Shih Wei Chieh and the scientist Wiriya Rattanasuwan, who engaged with the Tashi Getsen Charity School founded by Tsangsar Kunga Rinpoche and the local population of Nangqen the building of a greenhouse to provide food year-round for the orphan children sheltered by the school.
The difficulty to feed all the students is particularly present in the winter time when temperatures can go down to -30°C. The greenhouse that will be conceived and built by the artist and the researcher is destined to resist cold weather and be efficient all year long.
Thus, one of the first challenges of this project is to build an operative greenhouse to produce food in proper quantities and with good nutritive quality.
From this root, we wish to grow different branches: a scientific research laboratory and an artistic program.
The greenhouse thus turns into a ground for experimentation in different disciplines thanks to the implementation of various technology.
One of the main experiment is to integrate IOT sensors in the greenhouse structure, thus we hope to be able to collect weather and environmental data specific to a high altitude context, that will be communicated on a public internet platform, creating the first links of an open network between researchers of different fields.
Coming from a creative background, it also felt important to the artist to give an artistic aspect to this project. Shih Wei Chieh's practice is linked to technological research, especially smart textile innovation. He founded the Tribe Against Machine workshop, inviting international design and textile researchers to work with representatives of the Atayal tribe of Taiwan. Through this workshop, he creates a bridge between advanced technology and traditional practices, such as weaving and textile dyeing, therefore interrogating the place and future of traditional cultural practices in a present context that prioritizes the globalization of technological advances.
All these activities link with each other and merge in the context that is the greenhouse, though our second challenge is to guide those encounters so one doesn't overcome the others and all have space to breathe and thrive.
Inspired by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and her book « The Mushroom at the End of the World », the greenhouse is ground for an ecology of growth and experimentation; human, biological and technological. To use the words of Anna Tsing, we aim to create a « polyphonic assemblage » of « world-making projects, human and not human ». As the author explains, there are already various world-making projects around us, affecting our environment, though, in the age of the Anthropocene, human activity overshadowed all the other organisms. By noticing these other activities and working along with them or even encouraging them, we can create a functioning ecology where human and non-human subjects can live together and we suggest an alternative to the human-focused work that endangers our planet and our very own lives today.
Growing from a charity initiative focused on a limited and precise context (the Tashi Getsen School), the greenhouse virtually grows globally with a network of scientists interested in the data it provides and a network of artists and cultural organizations that we hope to develop through collaborations to bring more visibility to it.
Visibility is indeed our last challenge.
Nangqen is a remote area in Tibet, which will see its presence in the world grow thanks to the artistic and scientific networks developed from the greenhouse. Through communication channels outside of the classical art market or scientific grant system, this expansion will happen thanks to a project that positions the education and benefit of the local population at the front and extends towards a sharing of accessible information for research and creation, available outside of academic institutions, to whoever wishes to use the greenhouse's data. We are exploring the possibility of charity based on an economy of sharing, space and resources, in which various life forms can survive and thrive. — texts by Margot and Wei.

PDF download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WFOQQ-e6QhZ3OZypCFVgsuP8nZXwSe8Z/view?usp=sharing

The needs of local communities

Tashi Gatsen Charity School
Building the 2nd greenhouse to grow vegetables to fulfil the yearly need of the charity school orphans.
professional skill training program for the students ages from 8 - 14 years old.
Rong Chung
An 10 days e-textile camp with topics around ramie, soil, chinese textile culture, garment culture.
3 - 4 sellable workshop progrem for local fashion, textile students, art lover.
Products from the output of the workshop. (not necessary).