After a first week of residency with Het Huis Utrecht we finally took the time to write about our 5th week of fieldwork for our #WhoCares? project in Rotterdam (following social workers through their daily work in the neighbourhood of IJsselmonde.)
Check out the project 'Who Cares?'
Check out the 5th week of the fieldwork in Rotterdam
We have a little break now, just the time of our residency, the time to reflect. Already taking the opportunity to read a bit on the topic of "reciprocity". It resonates with the conversations we had during our process in Rotterdam: the dynamics of encounters, the desire to give, to help, to exchange, its limits, its power dynamics, the possibility to receive, the relation between generosity and moral. Morevover the difficulty to measure and evaluate works around these questions. Social workers and artists seem to be facing similar problems in this matter...
Hereby a short extract from Erik Hagoort's book, I don't know what your are going to say:
"reciprocity is the breath of society. you cannot meet the other without offering something: goods, services, interest, attention or care. And then, according to Levi Strauss, a process of compensation is started, no matter how. It does not have to happen immediately. Some time may pass first. Nor does it have to be one for one, but it can also be circular, in the confidence that what you do for another is a basis for solidarity. This is how Joseph Beuys imagined it:
