ecobasa at utopikon
Last weekend Delci and Arne from ecobasa participated at the Utopikon - the "utopian economy conference" in Berlin, which dealt with ways and challenges in the direction of a money-freer society.
Everything started on Friday afternoon with a Schnippeldisko (chopping disco) of saved vegan food, which was then cooked for the next day. Saturday was then full of input and exchange from the rough 300 participants on questions such as: How can we operate more solidarily? What are alternatives for a future economy? How would we like to live? We also enjoyed keynote-speakers such as Nico Paech, Friederike Habermann or Silke Helfrich, who gave inputs in the topics of de-growth, commons or ecommony.
On Sunday we participated with a stand in the "market of possibilities" and brought along ecobasa flyers, our new poster, community manuals as well as interesting books. We also had two laptops: one showing our video and one where the participants could discover this website and ask specific questions. Time just flew by, as we engaged in exciting conversations, built new and strengthend older connections.
At the stand next to us, there was a very interesting project, that we would like to share with you: The Geodome Project - A next generation Earthship. If you already know Michael Reynolds Earthships - self sustainable living houses that he built using trash like tires, cans and bottles in the desert of New Mexico - you propably agree that this is a pretty cool idea, that looks great!
The only downside is that Michael uses a lot of concrete in his buildings and the plans are not openly available. The Geodome is an attempt to provide detailed and comprehensible plans openly and to build with local materials, even in countries and areas where there is not so much trash.
Another interesting new contact was with the people from fluxtory. In their crowdfunding they give out wooden tokens with a QR code that leads you to a website where you can share the story of how you got the token with a gift. And then you can pass it on.. We want to use the same idea with a QR link to leaving a new reference on ecobasa. It is perfect for us, because we often witness gift transactions that nobody else knows about. So our wish is to make the gift-economy network visible, touchable and experienceable in the "offline world" :)
All in all, we enjoyed a lot the openness, curiosity and warmth of the participants as well as the commitment, creativity and love for details of the organisers. It was really refreshing to spend this weekend in the gift-economy spirit, with so many like-minded people. We left happy and (hope)full!