The Irrational Project is a work in progress and takes its starting point within the mechanisms and research on global suicide terrorism but utilizes the knowledge and ideas from all walks of human thinking. It is a transdisciplinary project made in collaboration with Robert Stasinski, a critic, curator and writer with a background in political science, art and criticism.
The research of anthropologist Scott Atran is the theoretical starting point of the project. Atran has spent several years investigating the reason behind the act of total sacrifice, whether it is for a religious cause or ideological convictions. His research has found that the mechanisms of radicalization are counterintuitive and center first and foremost around the creation of in-group feelings of meaning and transcendence, but also the merging of identities of violence with the self. Most suicide bombers are not radicalized in a Mosque, church or a school, but rather in the playground, in cafés and among their peers.
In DIY Heroes we focused on what Atran deems the most effective weapon to fight radicalization and destructive thinking, namely counter narratives, produced at grassroots level. Today, the hero or superhero stands as a symbol of a new story about the world and about the construction of self, sometimes fictional, sometimes real. In this work we organized a number of workshops at Lava, Kulturhuset in Stockholm, around specifically designed surveys that explored heroism and identity, targeted towards young people.
The surveys were made anonymously and gathered ideas of how heroism fuels the construction of the cultural reality of young people. The negotiation of identity were a big part of our surveys, visualized as short words, sentences or markings that in themselves became a witness of peripheral visions of the politics of self.
Through these workshops we came in contact with young people from a variety of backgrounds, places and countries, including Swedish-born, new arrivals and children of political refugees, living in most municipalities in Stockholm County.
The project was created with financial support from Kulturbryggan.
Dokumentation workshop DIY Heroes, 2016