In our latest issue of Green Agenda we bring together writing that celebrates its commitment to transformed life.
Writing that works up its commitments, creatively and intimately, to show us what people like us are already doing to move into this present future, taking our communities into a future that is already seeding possibilities in our present.
Our authors address a range of projects and vital ideas. They write about living that is all in when it comes to ecological and social justice. Living that vivifies us collectively.
From agroecology and life beyond capitalism to cycling and mutual aid. From urban transformation and the circular economy to political organising, engaged arts, and how to rethink electoral politics. And from our party back to communities.
Everything we do takes place on unceded Indigenous Country, and so transformative life should contribute to and build on Indigenous sovereignty. The various contributions position themselves in relation to this claim on justice too.
The latest issue
Though clearly about acting and doing, Tim Hollo suggests that living towards transformation is also fundamentally about reflecting on a very particular tension. One that needs to be brought out into the open. “We are all trying to square that circle of changing the world while living in the world as it currently exists”. The Green Institute, Tim writes, at its heart is a space to reflect on and work with this tension.
In her piece on utopia and agroecology, Tammi Jonas writes about the work to transform and sustain a radical farm. Her collective of family and friends, and neighbours, and her expanding community, like millions of peasants around the world, are all engaged in “farming, feeding and fighting here at home”.
Tammi’s essay is both about the work her community is developing on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country, and, at the same time, it’s a story of transformation that sees itself as part of something larger still, linking up with the powerful transnational peasant movement that is La Vía Campesina.
In their piece on cycling and mutual aid Simon Batterbury, Carlos Uxó, Stephen Nurse, andMargot Abord de Chatillon invite us to learn about what cycling collectives are doing in Naarm/Melbourne and around the country.
As the bike workshop movement expands slowly across what we now know as Australia, with bike kitchens popping up to make community, Simon and friends show us how a grassroots movement can make change in ways that defy expensive top-down urban engineering interventions. Relational work and conviviality are the basic tools at the centre of all this.
Across both contributions, but in others too, we get a real sense of the importance of understanding the work many of us are doing as part of a much broader movement. It seems like an obvious point to make, but it’s so easy to miss. Living towards transformation scales up like this too.
In his playful contribution, Naarm-based visual artist Michael Fikaris gives us an impassioned and principled comic. A tableau to address truth, the climate crisis and global injustice.
While Holstein Wong, in an intimate and beautifully written piece, reflects on the power of community organising in Meanjin/Brisbane and the ways in which our generation has found ways to come together to make change. The work of quietly quitting capitalism can be subtle, as mutual aid, cooperation, and conversation, remake the world all around us.
Drawing on the circular economy model, Steven Liaros offers a critique of the way in which we tend to think of urbanisation. The end of the city requires that we reimagine urban transformation, moving beyond possession and towards regenerative living.
In her piece, Rebecca Galdies, the former National Secretary and Convenor for the Australian Greens, has given us a piece that thinks creatively about term limits for elected Greens. Rebecca makes the simple and powerful argument that having representatives return to communities is just as vital as getting them elected in the first place.
We finish up the issue with a brief piece by Gabrielle de Vietri. The newly elected State Member for Richmond Gabrielle reflects on the path that led her from making art, to organising, to state politics. From the Sydney Biennale and the campaign against Transfield to the Victorian Parliament. Gabrielle will now continue the collective fight for equality and justice, with our movement, both inside and outside parliament.
In this issue:
- Transforming towards living by Tim Hollo
- Utopia: farming, feeding & fighting here at home by Tammi Jonas
- On mutual bicycle aid by Simon Batterbury, Carlos Uxó, Stephen Nurse, and Margot Abord de Chatillon
- Quietly quitting capitalism by Holstein Wong
- The very democratic and grassroots process of getting bums on seats by Rebecca Galdies
- Truth is essential by Michael Fikaris
- The end of the city by Steven Liaros
- From arts to politics by Gabrielle de Vietri
And, if you would like to see or hear some of our contributors, you can catch them in the webinar recording launching the issue, now edited to perfection by Elissa Jenkins!
Join us and support us by sharing the work, by making a regular donation or becoming a patron.
Take care,
Carlos Morreo
Editor, Green Agenda
Canberra, Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country