[matilda] a whopping great hole

[atw]

Mr> But surely the point of Matilda is that it is a voluntary space,
Mr> no-one is being forced to do anything.

Well I don't think anyone would be forced to do anything, art show or
not but nevertheless....

...I think this perhaps points to a massive hole in our thinking. I'd
actually assumed the point of Matilda was to build community. But I
realise now that this was just an assumption.

In fact there are no agreed aims or objectives at all for Matilda.
This makes things very tricky. In fact I think it is central to the
current debate. People are working in a similar way as they would a
campaign or protest. For most of these the aims are very clear and
obvious (Stop the War, Save the trees, etc. etc.). Every Indymedia has
it's own 'mission statement' (god, I hate that phrase).

But Matilda is simply a space used by different people with different
ideas and objectives.

Without any clear shared goal there is no basis or reason to reach
consensus.

We could try to agree shared aims for the place although maybe that's
not appropriate for a space. Most buildings inhabited by different
groups don't have any single goal. Or maybe they'd be pretty simple:
eg. we want to keep hold of this place for as long as possible.

The only other basis I can see for reaching decisions is by how one
group or persons project will affect others. If it doesn't negatively
affect what others do then its OK. If it does then some discussion
needs to take place.



Mr> But if one of the team takes a decoration upstairs, they can sell it and
Mr> keep some of the money for themselves. They have profited from their labour
Mr> where others have not.

I don't see that as a bad thing. It would be better if all profitted
but if only some do that is still better than none IMO.

But as I said with no common goal, discussion becomes difficult, if
not meaningless.

steve

PS. Thanks Anthony MC for your contribution. I found it very
interesting. It made me think. Good to see you getting involved.







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