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White Origami
(formerly known as White Canvas)
Schloss Schönburn was previously organised on the basis of the “white canvas” principle.
You can read more about this attempt at the bottom of this page (White Canvas 2017 and 2018).
The main idea for the white canvas approach was to leave as much freedom as possible for the participants to create their own vision of Schloss Schönburn, to de-centralize the organisation of common infrastructure (such as gate, rangers, LNT, … ) and only provide a very raw framework of the most essential organisation (renting the venue, setting up membership sales, managing art grants and budget, …). We wanted to get everyone as involved as possible, trying to create a real sense of community and sparking the joy of co-creation in every participant.
This is still our mission.
The previous events were running more or less smoothly, we were positively surprised by the extent of co-creation and community spirit and it was a joy to see so many active people contributing to everyone's experience.
However, we realised that there were some problems with our “white canvas” approach:
- While ideally everything was to be plain white and free to play with by everyone, the castle itself gave us a lot of restrictions and rules to follow
- These rules and restrictions had to be communicated to and followed by the participants, which was not always easy to enforce
- While the core-orga team was mostly relieved to see that many things happened on their own, initiated by the participants, not everything went 100% smooth and there were reoccurring problems (gate, LNT, placement)
- A few individuals were very often stepping in to resolve these problems, causing stressful situations
- Most problems could have been prevented by better organisation upfront
We realised, that in reality we can not provide a completely white canvas, but some lines have to be carefully drawn, some guidelines and rules have to be fixed before filling the rest of the canvas with life.
Therefore we came to the conclusion, that what we actually need and want to provide is a “White Origami” concept. Carefully shaped, but still open for your creativity!
What does White Origami actually mean?
There will be a core-orga team, taking care of all the basic necessary organisational steps. We will set up all info systems, gather all rules and restrictions, do our best to communicate everything well to participants and we will be available as site leads during the event, ready to solve a crisis or two, if necessary.
Unlike the last years, we will NOT leave key roles and responsibilities such as setting up and maintaining the gate (check-in), LNT, rangers, and placement completely open. Instead, we will raise awareness of open positions and vital organisational structures to be filled in, actively recruit responsible participants to take these positions, and provide a general plan on how we think that these issues should be tackled best. Speaking in origami, this is the careful folding of the white paper, which still needs YOU as colourful input!
When it comes to art projects, music, performances, and workshops, we will still keep the same self-organising structures as before. This means that any project, which needs funding, has to be registered as dream on the Dreams platform, where all participants can vote to decide which projects will be funded. Music, performances, and workshops can be planned and organised in collaborative documents (such as Google documents). Placement of structures and large happenings will be monitored and guided by the core-orga team to maximise the joy of all participants.
And last, but certainly not least, we will provide and manage organisational platforms as well as personal meetings to let you become a co-creator by radical participation! The main information platform is this Wiki - which you have already found. Check out our Participation page to see all other ways of becoming a co-creator!
Your journey to become a part of Schloss Schönburn has already begun )°(