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Tool Libraries & Repair Communities: Baltimore/Barcelona
December 2 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm EST
The rapid and massive cycle of production, consumption, and subsequent disposal of manufactured objects depends on the exploitation of finite natural resources and results in the contamination of bodies and terrestrial ecosystems. If this consumption happens within the framework of private and isolated property, or if disposal is accelerated by premature, planned, or perceived obsolescence, the damage multiplies on a larger scale and at a faster speed. While we celebrate institutional advances, such as the Right to Repair Act (NCSL), passed in several US states, or the approval of the EU Right to Repair directive, which serve as a legal shield for repair, we also ask about how tactics and strategies can proliferate to strengthen the self-immunity system from and for local communities. How can we share resources and knowledge to foster a culture of material repair that also repairs our community ties? In the face of this multiple toxicity derived from market and neoliberal capitalism, we can find some antidotes and “cures” in local initiatives like Libraries of Tools, Things and repair groups and communities. This event proposes a conversation between the Station North Tool Library in Baltimore (USA) and the Restarters BCN collective in Barcelona (Spain) to share learnings, achievements, difficulties, and challenges, and to imagine together how to continue to be an antidote to the toxicity of fast and individualized consumerism.
Location: The Station North Tool Library, 417 E Oliver St, Baltimore, MD 21202
Speakers:
Blanca Callén Moreu: Lecturer and researcher of the Social Psychology department at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and member of the CareNet research group (UOC). Her work lies at the intersection of STS, material cultures, and collective political action. In recent years, she has been researching electronic waste production and repair cultures in the context of the climate crisis, through the case of repair communities and the rematerialization of telecommunication infrastructures. She is co-founder and a member of Restarters BCN.
Jessa Wais: Jessa has served as a Co-Director at the Station North Tool Library for 6 years. They manage a lending library of 3,000+ shared tools with and organize free community repair events like Fix-It Fairs. Jessa was born and raised in Baltimore and received their BA in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University. When they aren’t working at the Tool Library, they organize Jewish Ancestral Skills Gatherings, and enjoy woodworking and knifemaking.
Anand Pandian: Anand Pandian is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. His books include Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life and How to Take Them Down, and A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times. Anand serves as President of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, and as a curator of the Ecological Design Collective, a community for radical ecological imagination and collaboration. He lives with his family in Baltimore, where he is currently working on a new book project on decay, waste, and the crafting of ecological futures.
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