AUTONOMY PROJECT 2 (English)

"I'm sitting at the van Abbemuseum's library. Suddenly, the door opens. A group of students/participants from "Summer School" of Van Abbe are coming into the room. A queue, more or less messy, everyone with a paper of different dimensions...at the end, the last one shakes a DIN2 and makes an strange sound with his mouth...
After them, Clare Butcher, one of the coordinators of the project, with a video cam, she is recording everything...
The group walks by my side, one of the participants just beside me. She breaks a piece of paper and gives it to me. It's a drawing. It seems a classical mathematics set. Some pieces goes outside of the set. Is that the meaning of to be autonomous?
They go up stairs to the second floor and there, they starts to declaim, words, concepts about autonomy. When they finish, they leave the library. Probably, they are walking now through the museum.
It isn't a madness. It is the first step of the Autonomy Project."
It was developed last week at the Van Abbe. A sort o meeting point or "summer school" as they self call it. In one week, there were a series of chats, workshops, debates and lectures about the concept of autonomy and its relation with the museums as institutions. On the bleachers were art historians, critics, curators, artist...persons. Everybody with an unique objective: to talk.
One afternoon, I saw the conversation between Jeroen Bomgaard, Galit Eilat, Annie Fletcher and Steven ten Thije. "The autonomy it's impossible. It's a concept. If we want to use it, the autonomy is gone. In a practical level, it's a promise given by the system to us. then...let's use it!" they said.
The objective isn't get answers, but make all the possible questions.
Next day, all the participants showed a presentation about their discussions, about the week and the work, the process that they walked together... and of course, there was the video film of that group...and I was there too, just a second, thinking about what's autonomy today, what could we do with the autonomy..is a tool? or is a norm? I don't know.
The project goes on...and I have the feeling that there is still a lot to think about it, let's see what is the next!!!