Currently seeking advice from this community on starting up a new research organization (of some kind) with a small gaggle of designers that I know. We are still trying to hone our focus but as a group we are all driven by community, peace, environmentalism, alternative systems, "dropping out," revolution, etc.
Things we don't yet know—
What form this should take: research institute, research center, cooperative, collective, school, think tank, journal, coalition, foundation?
What we should do: run a cooperative design studio, publish, research, teach classes or workshops, garden, direct action, all of the above?
What we should focus on: post-capitalism, anti-fascism, revolution, resistance, consciousness, others, all of the above?
I have a promising line on a grant, and so on the surface it would probably be ideal to appear legitimized, and so a research institute would be good for that. However, we want to attract fairly radicalized people with alternative ideas, and so something that implies leaderlessness like a cooperative or collective would serve those needs.
I am inspired by this review of Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything, where Sam Gindin appreciates the fact that capitalism is in fact the crisis and that the climate problem will not be solved without changing or ending it, but criticizes her reluctance to put any constructive, positive solutions forward. Marxists, squatters and punks have all been building or contemplating alternative paths for ages, but these communications are aimed at the fringes of society. As designers, we wish to interpret revolutionary thoughts and try to make them mainstream, or even to try and "design" a 21st century post-capitalist system.
I am also influenced by everyday revolutionary actions like guerrilla gardening, sharing, freecycling, mutual aid, self-publishing, bicycling, data liberation, and collaboration, and want to really popularize these ideas. One of the other people involved dreams of getting people in the creative community to completely refuse to participate in the capitalist economy.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Advice? Critiques? Anyone ever set anything up like this before?