THE COOL COLLECTOR & THE WILLEM DE KOONING ACADEMY PRESENT:

THE STAY ALIVE IN 25 PROJECT!

STAY ALIVE IN 25: START REGENERATE YOURSELF BEFORE 2012!

For the first time in ages the future is not necessarily becoming better. More and more people are not looking happy towards the future, they are afraid of the future. The economic crisis is not only a crisis that effects our financial lives, it also effects society and changes our culture and the way we threat each other. It’s creeping in many aspects of our daily lives and we all feel live as we knew it is changing radically. We are in a time of transition towards something else.

But a transition to what? And a transition by who? Everybody plays a role in how society changes, and everyone is able to change their role!

For the STAY ALIVE IN 25 project Irene Westerbeek a.k.a.  the Cool Collector and a group of motivated students teamed up during the annual projectweek of the Willem de Kooning Acadamy. They explored and talked about their position as youngsters in this period of transition, and their role as future designers. What can they do to change the growing negativity towards the future?

One thing is for sure, the future has never been more NOW in our lives! There is a need for different mindset, a regeneration. A regeneration that takes time and needs to start as soon as possible! Who better to change the mindset of the new generation themselves? They are the RE-generation and they have to coop with the future. So the students split up in groups, chose a social long term goal where they believe in and started to look for examples and ideas to start shaping this vision right now! Ideas that might not solve their goals but doing something is better then nothing!

INTRODUCING THE GROUPS:

Group 1: Change the role of money!

These three funny girls agreed that societies focus on money is the core problem of the problems we are facing today. Their long term vision was a world where money wasn’t that relevant anymore. To start this vision, they chose to explore ways to change the imaging of money. They developed a fictional economy student who dropped out of school because while he was learning more about the economy and money, he started to hate it. Their avatar Niels Hendrix (no family of Jimi) describes and shares his struggles changing the imaging of money on the Cool Collector for seven week in the new item: Valuta Friday.

Group 2: Unplug yourself!

Sanne Verhoeven, Sanne Visser en Boaz Souhuwat are all second year students of the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. The Sanne’s and Boaz believe that technology is driving people apart and keeps us away from the social physical interaction that makes our lives so much more worth living. Don’t get them wrong, they absolutely don’t reject social media, they are aware of the positive things it brings us. They are afraid that their social lives will just be by media in the future.  If we all just keep focusing on our small lives in our small phones we limit ourselves as a generation. To regenerate their generation, they believe they should start detoxing from their social media habbit and start focusing more on the world outside. So this clever group came up with a rehab program brought to you by Dr. Digi Tali. ”We created Digi Tall for a project for the project week. He has a solution for the crisis we live in.” Dr. Tali will report the steps of rehab balanced on Mondays until 2012!

Group 3: Connect with technology!

Frederick Janssen, Koen Rubingh and Jorge Coffie also believe technology and social media will play a large role in how our future will develop. They are worried that while people have to struggle more and more to make their ends meet, people might get more competitive in the future. But this primal idea of competition can really drive people apart, because; it’s the me-me-me-mentality that got our world in crisis in the first place. This needs to change, Frederick, Koen and Jorge believe. People need to work together, not against each other! Communication and technology will only continue to grow, but it can either distract and take the human race further apart, or the technologie can be a tool to ease the approach of people in reality. So they decided that their generation should be informed on how technology can be used to unite instead of com peat. Under their groupname the Tech Connector they explore ideas and example to regenerate our vision on connecting in public.

Group 4: Save our culture! 

Frank Siebelink and Nadia Benchrih are worried about the state of our cultural lives. Government grants are held back. Cut backs grow larger and larger. While we are struggling to let our culture survive, culture seems to be disappearing more and more. Whit a second recession coming up this will probably continue. The government will have no more money for cultural events on the longer term. Museum prices are growing higher and higher. Art is driven in a corner. We can’t even be sure if there will be libraries or proper education to form the next generation. As members of the RE-generation they believe they need to take matters in their own hands! If the public can’t find it’s way to culture anymore. The culture has to come to the public! During the last week they take you on a inspirational journey of ideas and examples of how culture can come into the public!

Group 5: Become transnatural!

Michael Pieters, Wencke Nilsson and Muruschka Kartosonto think our future can be saved by incorporating the beauty and power of nature in our culture. We should not only live eco-friendly and be aware of what damage we do to our planet. We should respect the power of nature more, what it can produce and how it grows and sustains itself. This knowledge and power we must integrate in our lifestyle, they believe their generation should be aware of alternatives for harming materials and energy sources. Energy is in nature, it’s all around it. As the RE-generation we should reconnect with nature again, embrace and integrate it, become transnatural! The last weeks of 2011 they will inspire you with there journey through several fields of lifestyle and explore the opportunities of living a transnatural life!