August

“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it, and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You’re just talking.” Wangari Maathai. Cited in The Green Belt Movement: 40 Years of Impact.

The last layer

"Whereas labour involves care and sustenance, work is the domain of creation and creativity. It calls on craft and skill and vision. It is about the dreaming of dreams and the making of things." Tim Jackson (2021). Post Growth: Life After Capitalism. Tapestry (July 2022). 

Photo of tapestry (80 x 102 cm) by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

July

"Beyond our material limits (...) lies another world. A place worth visiting. An investment worth making. A destination worth reaching. Tomorrow is another country. They do things differently there. Beyond the limits to affluence lies an affluence that only limits can reveal to us. Limits are the gateway to the limitless." Tim Jackson (2021). Post Growth: Life After Capitalism. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

A Day Later set

Jorge Queiroz (2020). A Day Later 1, 2, 3, 4 e 5 (not in this order). Exposição «to go to», Calouste Gulbenkian. 

June

Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

February

"Love appears as the most unlikely pinnacle in an entire universe of improbability. It's the most spectacular victory in our ongoing struggle to bring order out of chaos." Tim Jackson (2021). Post Growth: Life After Capitalism. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

July

"Is art resistance? Can you plant a garden to stop a war? It depends how you think about time. It depends what you think a seed does, if it’s tossed into fertile soil. But it seems to me that whatever else you do, it’s worth tending to paradise, however you define it and wherever it arises." Olivia Laing cited in Maria Popova «Gardening as Resistance: Notes on Building Paradise». Makes me want to read the book Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency (2021). Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

June

"Craft makes us human, and in doing so, it can provide deep satisfactions that are hard to replicate in other (dare I say) less hands-on activities." Cal Newport (2020). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Photo by Monica Pinheiro (PT20220621). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

June

"What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself." Dreams by Nuage. Tapestry and photo by Monica Pinheiro (PT20220615). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

June

"From the point of view of the network, mycelium is a single interconnected entity. From the point of view of a hyphal tip, mycelium is a multitude." Merlin Sheldrake (2021). Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures. Photo by Monica Pinheiro (PT202200615). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

"Uma imagem, pintada, esculpida, fotografada, construída e emoldurada, é igualmente um palco, o local para uma encenação. O que o artista põe nesse local e o que o espectador vê encenado nele, empresta à imagem uma qualidade dramática, como se fosse capaz de prolongar a existência através de uma história cujo início o espectador perdeu e cujo final o artista desconhece." Alberto Manguel (2020). Ler Imagens: em que pensamos quando olhamos para arte.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220527). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220526). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220525). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220524). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

"Love offers perhaps the highest example of human flourishing. An ultimate expression of human prosperity." Tim Jackson (2021). Post Growth: Life After Capitalism. Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220522). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220521). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

Photo taken May 2, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

Dangerous developments that seem interesting in 2007 described in a paper by Wild A. Crabtree et al (2006) «Supporting Ethnographic Studies of Ubiquitous Computing in the Wild» published in the Proceedings of the 2006 ACM Symposium on Designing Interactive Systems. In the full paper, there is only a brief annotation about ethics made.

Today it rung alarm bells, because tools are made available but education about tools is made short. You see, a tool can be a weapon if not properly used. 

When we study ethnography we learn about ethics in research. We need to use strick protocols that guaranty access to the field of study, including the conditions under which we are going to collect information, and explicit and informed consent of those under study in the field. But if the tools are made available without requiring awareness of the need for complying with ethics and protocols, they open up huge risks by allowing unware people the use of those tools without complying with mandotory obligations for ethics and protocols!

The «right to use something» (in the case described in the paper ethnographic digital tools), needs also the awareness of the «obligations that allow us to use something» (in the case of the paper, the obligation to inform people that they are collecting all that information about them, in all those places). Rights and obligations are a combo that comes together. We can not use one without the other. 

2022/April/18: text edited for clarity. Photo taken Abril 13, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"The spaces in which we can enjoy privacy have shrunk. We need consciously to create privacy zones in order to claw back some areas in which creativity and freedom can take flight unimpeded.” Carissa Véliz (2020). Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. Picture taken Abril 3, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"Some big tech became big by plundering our data without asking for permission (…) we were told that it was necessary for our gadgets to keep on working as they do (…).” Although “[w]e know that it is possible to have cutting-edge tech gadgets without privacy invasions.” Carissa Véliz (2020). Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. Photo taken Abril 3, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"The history of rights is, to a large extent, the history of progressively recognizing that human beings are not resources to exploit, but individuals to respect." Carissa Véliz (2020). Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. Image: «Forest in the City», Abril 8, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"Ser brava é a gente firmar-se naquilo que está a fazer, no que está a dizer e naquilo que quer ser." Written on the wall of «As Bravas» exposition. Photo: «Small Forest in the City», March 21, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ). Brave is also a web browser that respects the right to privacy.

March

 

"The cunning of uncertainty suspends routine. (…) It prepares one for surprises that come with increasing order of complexity in which non-linear dynamics reign." It "sends one back to consider context, the framing that holds but also constraints." Helga Nowotony (2016). The Cunning of Uncertainty. 

Photo os tapestry (78 x 98 cm) by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

March

"If the past has any significance for the present, here is a strong reminder that technology alone is never sufficient to garantee the future. What once served well under past environmental conditions may come to an abrupt end." Helga Nowotony (2016). The Cunning of Uncertainty. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

March

"Creativity, while it needs certain conditions to flourish, refuses to become subject to prediction. The creative process moves from disorder towards some kind of order which may include the order of random patterns. But it does not know in advance which order will emerge." Helga Nowotony (2016). The Cunning of Uncertainty. Painting by Menez (Maria Inês Ribeiro da Fonseca).

March

 

"Turning points in a life that seemed set on a predictable path suddendly emerge. (...) a reality check sets in. Once past certainties have collapsed, one begins to look at the world with different eyes. Emotions change. (...) The cunning of uncertainty lets in the unexpected. It makes room for the new, even if the new is often made from clever and unexpected recombinations of already existing elements. Poised on the threshold between the present and the unknowable future, it invites us to join the dance." Helga Nowotony (2016). The Cunning of Uncertainty. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

March

Call it what you will - futures, utopias, dreams - but remeber they "are imperfect, they are imaginative, they are joyful and wild, they are shamelessly emotive, and they are growing up through the cracks in extractivist capitalism." So today, like Malaika Cunningham, I invite you "to look for the roses around you. Those things which bring you pleasure, meaning and peace for no discernible reason other than they are beautiful and, for this, they make your world better." in Bread & Roses. Image of organic city garden, taken March 1, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

Kindness by default

As earthling, living in Portugal, I can´t imagine what Ukraine beings are going through in these hours, or what it must feel for Russian beings, having someone decide in their name to commit such an atrocity, so contrary to human species default to protect, care and blossom. Amidst another much bigger war of infinite greed, we add the greed for more territory, more resources, more terror, more power. Enough should be enough to concentrate on the habitability of the finitude of our Planet. 

Greed is a sickness. It needs help to be treated. If not treated can result in serious crimes: against environment (the biggest of all, given it sustains all life on Earth), against Nature and all living beings (including us), against our societies and the right to live peacefully and respectfully in a House that is much bigger than our homes, our communities, or our countries. 

What is happening is an aberration, an abnormality of the system, a hideous crime against us all. The system must be corrected. We are all encoded to be kind by default (*). We need to remind ourselves that what makes vibrant communities is respect, communion, sharing, and a lot of love for the extra energy to transcend ourselves (and endure in the most difficult of times). 

(*) Be alert for manipulation! We have been manipulated throughout history to believe that greed is our nature. It is not. More about it in Rutger Bregman (2021). Humankind: A Hopeful History.

February

"(...) I can think of no better form of personal involvement than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden (...) organically, is improving a piece of the world. (...) A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has set [her or] his mind decisively against what is wrong with us." Wendell Berry (2021). What I Stand for Is What I Stand On. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

February

"A renewable power system is not dependent on foreign energy imports nor vulnerable to fuel price manipulations – which are the main worries in an energy infrastructure that is largely based on fossil fuels." Kris De Decker (2018). Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security. [text inserted in 2022/03/07]. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

February

Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

February

"The combination between biometric data and mass surveillance results in an unlawful practice that unfairly treats everyone like a suspect." More about biometric data in Reclaim your Face. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

February

 

"Emerging trends in adaptation place an emphasis on the need for more transformational changes, which has a distinct logic that differs from traditional strategies." Noble, I.R., S. Huq, Y.A. Anokhin, J. Carmin, D. Goudou, F.P. Lansigan, B. Osman-Elasha, and A. Villamizar (2014). Adaptation Needs and Options. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

Mycorrhizal network

"Mycorrhizal networks (also known as common mycorrhizal networks or CMN) are underground hyphal networks created by mycorrhizal fungi that connect individual plants together and transfer water, carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients and minerals." Mycorrhizal network, Wikipedia. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

January

"[A]ll this was an ongoing labor of love. The sustainability of nature (...) never just falls into place; it must be brought out through that human work that also brings out our humanity." Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2017). The Mushroom at the End of the World: on the Possibility of Life in capitalist Ruins. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

January

"I comb through the mess of existing worlds-in-the-making, looking for treasures - each distinctive and unlikely to be found again." Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2017). The Mushroom at the End of the World: on the Possibility of Life in capitalist Ruins. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).