Visions of a Post-Pandemic Future
Lockdown Lessons

The programme is the conclusion of a year-long reflection process of the project Lockdown Lessons initiated by the Goethe-Institut in 2021, which will be presented at the CTM Festival in Berlin. Invited artists, experts and activists from different parts of the globe discuss a wide range of positions and present their post pandemic visions, especially on the central themes democracy and solidarity, science and research, proximity and distance, technology, blockchain, and creative industries. 

Many minorities in Los Angeles, particularly the Black communities, distrust the federal government and organise themselves. The German journalist Mohamed Amjahid discusses with the artist Joel Garcia and the Professor of Communication Robin Stevens how the trust in politics could be restored.

The future belongs to the blockchain technology. Exciting new opportunities will arise not only for technology companies, but also for the art sector, especially when working with DAOs. Processes can, for example, not only be designed to include more participation, but also to allow the experience of artistic worlds as a connected community.

What does it mean to be a citizen? How does it affect our political autonomy? Writer and podcaster Amit Varma, and Kavita Krishnan, writer and feminist activist take a ride through the city of New Delhi discussing how democracy can be renewed in post-pandemic times.

What is the economical potential of the African creative industries? Namibian filmmaker and creative entrepreneur Joel Kaudife Haikali speaks about his own experience on the Namibian market and his co-created Creative Industry Guide, which aims to bring African creatives and investors together on pan-African collaborations.

The pandemic jeopardises not only everyone’s health, but also the well-being of whole societies, testing what solidarity means today. In this module experts ask how much solidarity is needed in times of crisis to keep society from breaking up. Who gets to be represented by whom? Who is legitimised to represent them?

Creative companies in sub-Saharan Africa, each in their own way, have helped to overcome the privations of lockdown, isolation and immobility. Their products reflect the added value of creative work for wider social questions. In the module “Creative Industry” such creative entrepreneurs come together upon invitation of the Goethe-Institut Namibia and discuss ways of collectively constructing a designable future.

The coronavirus has changed the social standing of scientists and researchers in the Global North. Researchers in various disciplines are helping us to understand what positive and negative effects the pandemic had on various social groups. The Goethe-Institut Brussels and its partners will address this urgent question and take the chance to look into the future: How do we want to live from now on?

This past year has made clear that while our lives are coming to a standstill in almost every domain, the dynamic of digital transformation is accelerating. We need new approaches to break out of the cycle of centralised data storage and surveillance technologies. Blockchain technologies allow new ways of working in the cultural domain, but cultural workers must be involved in order to explore and shape the future makeup and organisation of its institutions.

In ways we never imagined a virus now compels the world to keep its distance and regulates the closeness we are allowed to have with others. What happens with us when cultural practices of proximity are so fundamentally questioned? Which forms of distancing has the pandemic required in different social systems? The Goethe-Institut aims to explore these questions in Brazil, Korea, India and Germany. The focus will be on the future: How close to others can we be, and how close do we want to be?