Dear Artur

Dear Artur,

thank you for the workshop. I am glad that I met you.

The questions you posed were both simple and complex. Accurate in timing and on point.

This statement made, it is not meant to be a very generalized answer given to another question, one you did not ask: What it was like for us? For me?

Which leads me further to: What was it like for you?

What ‘we’ did there might be exactly what ‘we’ have been doing for years;

or is probably strongly connected to that kind of process of gaining awareness of whatever is not satisfactory in your immediate environment, or the institution/s you are working/moving inside of. A sort of criticality that, once developed, has the potential to build, ruin, change things. There is a pleasure one can take in analysing and deconstructing a structure of relations, of power, of information.
Step 2: Seeing the possibility and detecting the scope of action to change things, or to take an influence on something.

What was different in this specific case was: ‘We’ never had so little time to identify a ‘problem’. As a result it was very fulfilling to get immediate results. Results you can see or touch are great, a bit like with manual crafts, cutting a wooden board in half for example.

I very much like the idea of starting from your own perspective, or each single person’s in the group, the unit, starting with me, my point of view. It’s the only starting point one has, after all.

When figuring out a common problem, or an issue.

This is something pretty obvious, but took me a long time to understand.

Also, it’s always nice to see or to be reminded of how easy it can be to use official channels of bureaucracy to receive something, to get something done. And, what is more, to achieve this by not even really tricking the system or the institution, but by actually following their rules.

It is a very beautiful and subtle sort of subversive practice. You could call it a game too.
On a broader basis or for society as a whole this action was probably not that significant, it might of course get spread, however; Or soften some borders.

Your contained posture and cautious way of talking never let on if you enjoyed any of what happened, what was said, what was done; I saw you laugh towards the end, twice, when we were finally granted permission to eat bread on the balcony. That was reassuring.

So. This mail you will never receive is a substitute for the feedback round we did not have.

I hope you are doing well,

Best,

Thomas

(a letter to Artur Żmijewski I never sent)