NOWA SZKOŁA MANIFESTO
Nowa Szkoła (The New School) is a constellation of people dedicated to imagining possible futures – better ways to live together on our planet. It is created by artists, activists, theorists, and theatre creators in collaboration with the local community.
Nowa Szkoła is also a specific location – a campsite with minimal infrastructure and a former school building awaiting renovation, located in the small village of Kopice on the Szczecin Lagoon, next to a Natura 2000 protected area and adjacent to fishing and agricultural lands. After renovation, the school building will become a creative space for an international network of artists, activists, and theoreticians.
In a chaotic, fast-paced world focused on business relationships, Nowa Szkoła offers a peaceful place conducive to building relationships, exchanging thoughts, knowledge and opinions, as well as a place to turn ideas into practice.
Our areas of interest are:
• relationships: building an international network based on friendship, dialogue, exchange of ideas and joint action for the society we collectively imagine. Inclusion of the excluded and vulnerable; creating opportunities, counteracting burnout.
• alternative institutions and activism: independent culture, collectivism, creating new and negotiating existing cultural practices; networking and field research; speaking out on important issues, encouraging iclusion in access to culture despite place of residence, level of education, origin.
• nature ecology / biology / permaculture, degrowth understood as preventing the exploitation of the planet and appreciating not only crops and flowering, but also eclipses or a dormant state as elements of development.
• site-specific activities negotiating space: building small architecture, infrastructure and sculptures (including clay) and musical instruments using natural resources / local and natural materials
• body performance, choreography, voice composition, dance. Rest, breathing, regeneration.
We work slowly and steadily, expanding our scope of interests. We rely on personal contacts and friendships, striving to get to know each of our guests. We prioritize small groups and intimate events that treat the space we occupy with respect. We offer Summer Schools – residential stays for individuals and small groups, where you can relax, work on new projects, or finish old ones.
Our activities are sustainable. We avoid large events and one-off festivals. We spread our energies and resources evenly across small, seasonal activities, adapting their shape and format to current needs and opportunities to avoid burnout and overexploitation of both nature and our immediate surroundings, as well as our own energy and creativity.
Our working methods are:
• conveing meetings, conversations, discussions, lectures, workshops, conventions
• creating concerts, shows, performances, outdoor screenings and active recreation
• hosting artistic residencies for groups and individuals
• cooperating; searching for allies, research trips, foreign residencies, applying for funds for common goals, running international cooperations
• getting involved in the life of the local community and involving the community in the life of the New School.
• constructing: joint work for the place, construction of infrastructure, renovation, taking care of the area
• celebrating being together through cooking and dancing 🙂
Community is the axis of our activities and its foundation.
We believe that collectivity, community, and overcoming individualism and identity politics are valuable alternatives to the neoliberal model of cultural production. We collaborate with venues based on similar principles. We believe that the arts can (and should) provide a safe space for challenging discussions about contemporary life and coexistence.
The school enables dialogue between generations, people from large cities and those from rural areas, experts in a given field (farmers, fishermen) and people who benefit from the fruits of their labor, scientists and artists. The New School is located in an area with a complex history, where the stories of Polish-German relations intertwine, but also the biographies of repatriates and people migrating from many distant lands. Hence our interest in anthropology and historical geography, but also in the future of coexistence, hence projects involving minorities and international projects.
We are open to cooperation with anyone who shares our ideas and is willing to implement them in practice with us.