Current social, economic, political, governmental and technological responses are too slow to provide answers to the rapid growth and speed of societal changes, not one stone seems to be left upon another. Rapid urbanization, the devasting of rural landscapes, increasing density in cities, structural unsustainability and conflicts over diminishing natural resources, massive explosion of environmental and economic refugees. Design must become politics. We cannot further rely on governments and society. Unexpected change appears on the agenda. We have lost our courage like someone who lost his glasses.
The philosopher Cynthia Fleury argues for the recapture of the core virtue of democracy: Courage. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben believes that “the true courage is not to imagine an alternative, but to accept the consequences of the fact that there is no clearly discernible alternative: the dream of an alternative is a sign of theoretical cowardice and the true courage is to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is most likely the headlights of another train approaching us from the opposite direction”. Our workshop and interventions will therefore deal with the topic of courage.
Participants were invited to find questions about what is needed for courage for democracy.

LOCATION:
This took place at Z33 and a public space in Hasselt.
The questions were sprayed with chalk powder on the asphalt. Objective was to discuss these issues with as many passerbys as possible.
The further participants were asked to draw ‘needs for courage’ on brown corrugated paperboards and hold it in front of the Majors residence as a statement and memory, that democracy must remain as a basic condition of politics.