Hard Art: an invitation

In November 2022, we were part of the crew that launched a new cultural movement Hard Art – a collective standing in solidarity in the face of climate and democratic collapse. On its second anniversary, we thought it a great time to re-share the original invitation.

We’ve since met, expanded, organised, created, danced and protested together, and, two years down the line, have built solid foundations of trust, respect, love and creative collaboration with each other to do The Work that’s needed.

Many of the Absurd Intelligence crew are also those who do the graft behind the scenes, with Brian Eno, Jo Rendle, Jamie Kelsey-Fry, Clare Patey, Liz Slade, Paul Ewen, Florence Schechter and many others, to make Hard Art.

The original invitation is an important cultural artefact of this movement. We share it here as a reminder of our purpose which, for us, is always that we can, and will, together forge a better world.

The Invite (which you can collect via the release on Metalabel):

Summer 2022 showed us a glimpse of what our climate broken future holds and presently the British government ranks more right wing than Bolsonaro. When faced with the convergence of so many crises it is incumbent upon those who can see things for what they are to help others to find clarity and agency. Nobody voted for this. 

So I’m writing to ask if you will join us for an event, and to be part of a plan to make a very different world? The plan is already being developed and put into practice. We’re inviting you because there has been a missing piece in attempts at change making so far, which you can help with.

We are developing a plan to drive the change we so urgently need on multiple fronts, in concert: upgrading politics, rewiring our economies and most importantly redefining what it is to be human in these times. To join the dots, show how ordinary people are already far ahead of those who hold power, and how we can all play our part in building a better world. 

The team behind it are doing something unique: reaching beyond traditional divisions bringing experts in diverse fields together to collaborate. People who set up the fastest-growing direct action movement of recent memory, Extinction Rebellion (106 countries in < 18 months); experts at the forefront of new models of governance (most notably running the world’s first Global Assembly at COP26); plus some of the most visionary people from politics, spirituality, economics and tech. 

This work requires us all, but absolutely vital to it are those whose skills lie in the imagination. Artists, writers, actors, musicians; if we are able to imagine new ways of being we will write the brief and create space for others to follow. We will know what we are running towards, not simply what we are running from. 

The much-missed David Graeber put it perfectly:

“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.” 

So that’s why I am writing to you. To invite you to a small get together at Brian Eno’s place on November 21st at 1pm.