ENdemic

WHAT IS ENdemic

ENdemic is a movement that aims to better society through communication, art, engineering, and research. It believes that communication, reflection, and exchange between disconnected communities will better the lives of all. It also believes that breaking societal walls will allow heretofore unforeseen fruitful collaborations. In this spirit, we curate these connections through various means such as technological installations, international collaborations and cross-cultural ventures, as well as multidisciplinary research, and a host of cross-expertise projects about and around these shared values.

The EN in the ENdemic movement stands for 縁 the Japanese character for connection, bond and marriage, and DEMIC for Design, Education, Mediation, Inspiration, and Community.

The ENdemic movement can be described as an entity with three core elements:

1. The head values accurate data, scientific input, constructed philosophy and advanced technology. This pole of activity collaborates with academia and research, theoretical knowledge, and abstract thinking.
2. The heart values empathy, inclusivity, human interaction, and emotion. This is also where the vision and ambition comes from. This pole of activity creates and defines guides for the general direction of the movement. It also communicates on the societal issues that we face and on why we want to solve them
3. The body value action, building, and creation. This is where the knowledge, the will, and the vision coalesce together into concrete actions, practical projects and product creation.
4. Each pole of activity is of course connected and works in concert with the two others. The body’s actions and projects led to reach the goals and realize the vision set by the heart, using methods, understanding and technics provided by the head. The head acts and creates initiatives through the body, and its activities motivated and guided by the heart’s vision. And the heart is fed and informed by the head and acts through the body.

In these endeavors, the Endemic movement has once again three approaches:

• To break the bad, the old, the wrong, the mean, and the cold. To denounce the injustices and work actively to decrease the suck in the world.
• To bridge distances, boundaries, gaps, and schism and bring people together. To mediate for collaboration and interactions between estranged fields, places, and people.
• To build anew and birth new understandings, new trials and new ways of life. To build together the society in which we wish we lived. To build with intention, rich of our diversity and with the wealth of its shared knowledge. To build free from our biases and self-centeredness.

Once more, these three approaches are used together and in concert. There is no destruction without connection and rebuilding. Neither can we bridge people together without breaking open our preconceptions and building new relationships.