PUMP! Cooperative
PUMP! is an art cooperative budding within Biennale Warszawa since February 2020. The name of the association suggests water and more broadly, life-giving artistic energies which we want to pump into the social circulation of ideas. At the same time, it alludes both to the area of our activities and working methods – at Pump! we put emphasis on grass-roots activities, pumped with enthusiasm of the cooperative members.
Pump! cooperative deals with issues related to the climate catastrophe, searching for answers to challenges which we face following the ecological crisis both as individuals and entire societies. We don’t want to monger fear but directly react to consequences of changes. This is why we are creating a cooperative which will allow us to educate ourselves and others and test functional solutions, e.g. in the area of urban gardening or household water retention, which all enable us to adapt to the environment undergoing transformation before our eyes.
At the same time, the art cooperative constitutes an answer to deficiencies of the job market, economy and the art world itself. Economic crises, precarious employment conditions, environmental pressure, the feeling of being lost and fear, unquestioned hyper individualism and omnipotent logic of self-made success – women graduating from art schools face all these issues even during their studies, and after their completion the situation becomes even more difficult. Pump! Cooperative formed by a team of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw graduates is to become an alternative model of action, a proposition of a completely different path for young people to follow while looking for their own place within artistic activity, activism and social engagement.
Under the auspices of Biennale Warszawa, we are allowing ourselves to carry out this experiment. We are exploring what artistic activity can do in the face of the climate catastrophe. Will art, as a field extremely sensitive to changes in public feeling, be a useful tool in the times of crises and transformations on the systemic and planetary scale? Can it produce economically, socially and environmentally functional alternatives? Of course, this is something which we cannot know, but in the face of catastrophe we do not allow ourselves to stagnate – we want to draw young artists into joint activities which will be saturated with sensitivity to current situation of human and non-human beings and oriented against the universal numbness and feeling of helplessness.
Pump! Cooperative
>Pump! Cooperative fits into programme concepts of Biennale Warszawa, postulating a model of institution engaging in social activity instead of participating in the overproduction of another exhibition, it supports the development of new, grass-roots initiatives aimed at self-aware post-growth.
Hydroponic installation
One of the major local climate change-related problems in Poland are geometrically disappearing water resources. Contrary to appearances, we are living in a country with extremely limited water supply. Periods without rain are extending every year which endangers the stability of ecosystems, agriculture and the entire economy (dry rivers mean, for example, prolonged breaks in energy supply). This is why the Pump! Cooperative, through experiments conducted on a small scale, wants to explore and test low emission agricultural techniques for indoor use which require a minimal water supply – hydroponics and aeroponics, as well as other methods of sustainable urban gardening.
The first project of the Pump! Cooperative is building and exhibiting a working hydroponic installation. Is consists of several modules for cultivating plants and edible flowers within a closed water circulation. The piece will be accessible at Biennale Warszawa, as a both material and symbolic foundation of the story about looking for security in an unstable world of the climate catastrophe, and the centre of the space for exchanging knowledge and experiences which we animate. Maintenance work on the installation will also be the source of materials for creating other projects, e.g. pieces and video films, as well as publications. Produce grown in the installation will be used during events concerning food issues in the times of the climate catastrophe, ecological kitchen and possibly ethical cooking, and to organise open cooperative dinners. The public programme organised around the installation is concerning e.g. self-reliance, zero emissions, food sovereignty, hydroponic farming, water retention, waste management, or changing eating habits.
