[Low-tech Lab Community ] First weekend of gathering!
The Low-tech Lab Community has been in the process of being launched since spring 2018. The objective? Act together for a greater impact ! In this way, countless discussions and actions have bloomed: creation of local Low-tech Lab Communities, Low-tech Explorers projects… But how can we create a community by being in the 4 corners of the world? We have to meet in the flesh! This has been done this Saturday 7th and on Sunday 8th of September 2019 in Grenoble (France) with the Gathering Week-end #1 organised by the Community’s coordination team and hosted by the local community of Grenoble. An essential step for the low-tech movement!
If Victor Hugo were still with us, he would certainly have said about us: “There is one thing more powerful than all the armies in the world, it is an idea whose time has come.”
Don’t you see what we’re getting at?
It’s normal, nobody knows how all this will end, the adventure of the Low-tech Lab has just begun!
With about fifty brave and valiant men and women, we gathered to reflect on the course leading to the next stopover of the Earth ship.
Let us boldly try to summarize the question that brings us together: what world should we build with softer technologies that are more respectful of the needs of human beings and of the planet?
Do we still need to point out that the rules of the game have changed at anthropocene time? (explanation in short version#youtube & long version #franceculture )
Marjolaine Bert, coordinator of the Low-tech Lab Community: "This unifying event had 3 objectives: human encounter, sharing of experiences and of good practices, and co-construction. To finally find each other physically after months of remote collaboration is energizing! It was wonderful to see all these people discovering themselves and who are yet already sharing common values, visions and actions. It is a movement that is taking shape, and that will be able to move the lines locally and concretely. ”
On this beautiful back-to-school weekend, the overactive people of Grenoble welcomed the actors from the Low-tech Lab from the surrounding passes but also from the capital, the North, the South, the West (and certainly from the East but we heard them less, except the people of Grenoble of course). For participants from outside Grenoble, the rule was a maximum of 2 representatives per community.
By the way, why Grenoble ? ? Because since the beginning of the Low-tech Lab association, the Grenoble community has been the second most developed Low-tech Lab community, after the Greek community led by Low-tech with Refugees (but well, it was necessarily further for the majority of communities, that are still very largely French!). The Grenoble team is composed of about thirty active members, almost all of them engineers!
By organizing this first Weekend Meeting in Grenoble, members of the local community are honoured and benefit from the attractiveness of the event to gather new members.
Kévin Loesle, President of the Low-tech Lab Grenoble: “We were super motivated to host this meeting, to allow our members to get involved in a major event and to bring our group together! I am delighted to have met the other community leaders, they’re really great people, I can’ t wait to continue to build this great adventure collectively!”
Victoria Dockter, weekend logistics: “Organizing an event for 50 people over 3 days without a budget is not easy, but it pushes you to be ingenious, especially thanks to the recovery of fruits, vegetables and materials. We also set targets of zero waste and sobriety. And in the end, the state of mind was one of simplicity, so everything went very well. It was delicious, beautiful, fine, organic, thank you!”
As an appetizer, the Week-End schedule should feed your appetites.
SATURDAY
These first Meetings began with the presentation of some pioneering initiatives:
- For the Low-tech Explorer : the Nomade des Mers and the Atelier Low-tech.
- For local Low-tech Lab Communities: Greece with Low-tech with Refugees, Grenoble and Marseille.
Experiences, desires for collaboration, needs, financial constraints… The diversity of realities is expressed.
Marjolaine Bert, community developer, and Antoine Delaunay, one of the weekend’s volunteer speakers, took the time to read and explain the Low-tech Lab Charter, the result of a collective effort lasting for several months.
Saturday morning is already coming to an end.
A word about the exciting organizational modalities: the good old self-management has naturally emerged. The motivated participants took care of the necessary tasks for the smooth running of the event.
The day goes on with an afternoon of exchanges and sharing of good practices in small groups around common action methods: manufacturing workshops, hackaton, written and video documentation, training, awareness events, wikiton, educational programs, referencing of actors and solutions, experimental sites, etc.
And to benefit those who are absent and future members of the Community, everything is capitalised in “methodological activity sheets”: additional tools to share and which are available for members who are starting this type of actions or for the ones who want to improve their methods!
Clémentine Bourrel, co-leader of Low-tech with Refugees, low-tech community of Lesvos, Greece: “A great opportunity to share our respective experiences and to be inspiring! Low-tech with Refugees shared its experience in adapting low-techs to a particular local context, that of refugee camps. This implies appropriation by disadvantaged groups and the establishment of the “Low-tech Makerspace” to unite local craftmen around the development of common solutions.”
Saturday evening, a relaxed evening by the fire and a dancing atmosphere in a vault at the height of conviviality. To create a link, we haven’t found anything better yet.
SUNDAY
Overcoming the comforting temptation of talking to each other, we addressed structuring questions for any contemporary collective movement during workshops where everyone was invited to speak:
- governance (= who decides and how? what influence do local communities have on the concarnoise association’s system?)
- economic model (= how to act sustainably by diversifying its finances through its action?)
- internal communication channels (= how to collaborate effectively remotely?)
- Low-tech Explorer (= which input and output processes of the program?)
- financing (= how to find the resources to act at short term ?)
- external communication (= what strategy should be designed so as not to get lost in the attention-trapping interfaces?)
Obviously, local situations are varied and questions are still numerous, but the understanding of the issues is increasing and the co-writing of the answers is progressing.
Romain Chanut, communication speaker: “How can we remain indifferent to this brilliant enthusiasm put at the service of a softened technical fertility? As much as I didn’t find myself completely in the “Manouche des Mers” project, because I can’t swim, so much there, in Grenoble, I’m not afraid of the waves.”
And on Sunday afternoon, a short time to manufacture low-tech systems: solar cooker, pedalboard, rocket stove (or “efficient wood-burning fireplace” as we say there)!
And yes, it was the participants who set on fire ! 👊
What to remember from this weekend?
Elsa Donadio, co-leader of the “Atelier Low-tech” : “ “I loved discovering that we are more and more at being Low-tech Explorers! And I liked putting faces on names, and being able to give each other advice on live. The atmosphere was great, a dynamic that is heart-warming !”
Laurène et Nicolas Thenoz, coming Low-tech Explorers, carriers of the “Tour Zero” project : “ We discovered a community that we didn’t know was existing a few months ago and we have now a better understanding of the low-tech spirit. We leave with a desert fridge design for our van’s kitchen :) ”
François De Champs, coming Low-tech Explorer in Auroville (India) : “I discovered a very dynamic association, enthusiastic and sharing the same vision as mine : this of offering simple tools and reproducible, the Low-techs, which permit to answer to an elementary need (water, food supply, energy, housing).”
Nicolas Kaplan from Marseille, is summing it up perfectly: “The will to do together. And the questions raised to find and choose how to do it. Hence the interest of the workshops of reflection and co-construction. Between the participants it was as if we already knew each other: certainly these common values forge open, caring, and enterprising personalities !”
Of course, it was more fun to live it than to read on Medium… ;p
As this event is intended to be an annual event (or even more if we find the strength !), probably hosted by a new and particularly active local community (#Bordeaux candidate)… we hope you will be there for the next edition!
To join the Low-tech Lab Community (Local Community, Low-tech Explorer project, translator, Low-tech Ambassador) :
- > contact the local group nearest you directly if there is one!
- > marjolaine@lowtechlab.org & community@lowtechlab.org !
Ressources & links :
Articel co-written by Romain Chanut aka Openizer, Marjolaine Bert, Fédora Acoca-Pidolle, translate by Marie Beaurain, whith photographs of Jean-Baptiste Thony, Kévin Loesle and Nicolas Kaplan. Thank you all for your incredible energy !
