Why create (and start) again and again?

It's no secret that for some time now, I've felt in crisis with a certain logic of doing activism that predominates in my work field.

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For at least two years now, I have been able to express my discomfort openly and share concerns in public. I have had many inspiring conversations about facets of what I consider a crisis of imagination in many progressive social justice and socio-environmental ecosystems.

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It is indisputable that the civil society organizations I work with have an enormous and valuable capacity to carry out critical analysis, make diagnoses, and create strategies for responding to, resisting, and combating oppression. And, recognizing the importance of these approaches, I miss those that describe the realities we want to create. We are great at saying what we don't want. We are good at being “anti”. But this is not enough. There is a need for activism that opens paths for us to fable, even toward seemingly unlikely scenarios today, with boldness and creative audacity. We commonly lack words and images to vividly describe the realities we want to build.

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Until recently, I also lacked the strength to suggest other possibilities to reorient my contribution to social and environmental transformation. Because I have dedicated myself to investigating ways to exercise my imagination in a (post)activist way, I have accepted that I am also a tentacle of the monster and delving into the little-known fissures behind my exiled capabilities.

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On this journey, I found inspiration in irresistible provocations. One of the most recent is the call by a young black feminist who is dedicated to "invoking other ways" ("to invoke the otherwise," in the words of Lola Olufemi). "Replace the other ways with what keeps you alive," she says. And so I do.

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Lola's invoking is not an invitation to explore other ways already appearing on the horizon, apparently waiting for us. It's a call to embrace the unknown and trust in the promises we make to ourselves to be in the world at the service of love, solidarity, and life. It's about overcoming the dominant fiction that the current system tells about itself endlessly and that we absorb and perform without realizing it. These are new pedagogies.

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I am now interested in exploring what we can imagine collectively and radically and, in the process, overcome the notions crystallized in "this is how you do it" politics, campaigning, common space, the way out, advocacy, philanthropy, partnership, and mobilization. From my point of view, in the face of the multiple crises we are witnessing (which worsening is expected), and in the sight of the dismantling of institutions and systems that apparently kept us safe, it is dangerous to continue doing business as usual, following the "this is how you do it" guide. In the ecosystems I work in, much money is spent repeating formulas created in a world that no longer exists to respond to problems we didn't face about ten years ago. I don't feel comfortable with that. My sense of urgency makes me wake up almost every day at three in the morning. And I don't wake up because I'm distressed. I wake up because I want new ideas, and I'm curious.

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It doesn't make sense to go about my day ignoring the other ways that summon me, that whistle at me in the early morning hours. That's why Toriba was created. To be a space for expanding possibilities regarding the visions of the future that we can collectively design. And to promote experimentation with other ways of doing activism, philanthropy, social innovation, and promoting change. It is a space to remember that everything we understand as reality was invented, that the future is no one's property, and that we do not need authorization to invent other systems.

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