leap lab

[image by james norton]

started 11.10.24.. ntro’d via carnival for david 2025 connection via nika dubrovsky on bsky [https://bsky.app/profile/nikadubrovsky.bsky.social/post/3lxic7x65yk2u]:

Preparation for the Carnival 4 @davidgraeberinst.bsky.social [https://davidgraeber.institute/carnival-for-david-2025/]

Carnival for David 2025 – Event date: September 20 / 2025

david graeber.. carnival.. on david dying.. et al

“In Carnival, not only was hierarchy temporarily suspended or reversed, but the whole world was reconstructed as a “Land of Cockaigne,” as the saying went, a domain in which there was nothing but bodies happily partaking of the world and of each other.” 

manners, defer, private property

-David Graeber (Manners, deference and private property: or elements for a general theory of hierarchy.)

It’s time to ‘uncrown and debase’ the self-appointed kings and reimagine our future. This year, we are opening portals to possible futures with LEAP lab at the University of Cambridge. There will be music, dance, loitering, food, fashion shows, and workshops galore.

notes/quotes from leap lab site [https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/research/research-labs/leap-lab/]:

LEAP Lab aims to create a space for being and re/searching together in multiple ways – scholarly, artistic, and beyond, to explore questions concerning sustainability. We welcome and encourage presences from any and every disciplinary practice, in an endeavour to generate encounters and engagements that explore the blurry yet potentially generative nature of disciplinary boundaries. Some of the questions that we intend to grapple with include:

sustainability.. disruptive sustainability.. et al

for sustainability.. need to get to the root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake.. (why leap et al)

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition

otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness [aka: not sustainable]

What are the deeply entrenched disciplinary boundaries, assumptions and practices that structure thinking about sustainability? Why is it important to challenge them? How can we start?

What new questions, collaborative practices and possibilities for sustainability emerge when we collectively unravel those constraints? How can we spot these in process?

How are disciplinary boundaries made and un-made?

Are there questions we cannot ask because we know too little, or perhaps (seemingly) too much?

to me.. the only ‘questions’ [aka: curiosity] we need to focus/listen on is the itch-in-8b-souls.. 1st thing everyday

How can we trouble and unravel disciplinary structures? What might this mean for questions on sustainability? Does the way we approach a question impact the kinds of answers we get?

Where are our perceptual and conceptual limitations that we are unaware of? What can we do to find these blind spots and thought traps? If we cannot escape them, how can we work around them or learn to work with them?

In being and re/searching together we emphasise generating new kinds of questions rather than focussing on answers, which we believe will be emergent in nature.

again.. new kinds of questions ness begs to be itch-in-the-soul

This transdisciplinary project involves a collective of researchers and practitioners at the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University. It runs for two years from October 2024.

Our work is structured within three creative experiments:

  • Un/knowing – What new ways of knowing might emerge if we are more open to unknowing?

perhaps that we just need to let go of knowing ness.. of documenting/explaining/showing/describing.. knowing ness.. ie: graeber can’t know law et al

  • Beyond the Gallery – How would our practice differ if we increased our awareness of galleries we are playing to, and attempted to go beyond them?
  • Portals to Possible Futures – What kind of past would we need to reimagine/recreate so that we might be able to dream the future differently?

perhaps let’s just let go of past ness.. history ness as part of the cancerous distractions we seem to be addicted to

  • Events and activities involving participation from varied groups are central to our approach. We intend to have 1-2 events every term which are open to interested participants and researchers from across University and beyond. Each of these events will be an exploration of process and practice that encourages us to take off the ‘epistemic goggles’ we come into the practice with, and aims to make us more comfortable with the complexity and destabilisation that come with exploring the uncharted.

embracing uncertainty ness et al.. finding the bravery to change your mind ness et al

  • If you are interested in staying informed of our activities, please subscribe to our mailing list.
  • If you would like to work with us, please contact: leaplab@crassh.cam.ac.uk.
  • If you want to get involved in specific experiments, please contact:
  • Sarah Royston – Un/knowing
  • Karishma Jain – Beyond the Gallery
  • Annouchka Bayley and James Norton – Portals to Possible Futures

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