[003] Silver Institutions

"Freedom is not earned or won, it is built." - Evelyn Bi, On Object Freedom

In January of 2020, I began a one-year internship at North House Folk School with three other young folks interested in traditional crafts.

The campus of North House is always alive with people. Axes thump into stumps as students carve curls of wood off spoon-shaped branches. Looms bang and crash as yarn is thrown from arm to arm. Hammers ring on anvils. People gather in the warmth of the stone oven and bake bread.

In two months, the pandemic had begun, and all was suddenly silent. I wave to the beavers on the dock, and that is my social interaction for the day. A stranger walks their dog on the other side of the street, and they are the only human person I've seen all morning. All of a sudden, the campus of North House is my entire world.

This was my introduction to the idea of a silver institution. An organization that people fall back on when power structures start to crumble.

The Roman Empire was a gold institution for much of Europe. They used military occupation, financial manipulation, religious enforcement, and all other forms of hegemonic dominion both violent and subtle to run the place.

Gold institution: the first-place champions in the battle of hierarchy. Gold medalists. The top of the pyramid. The crown-bearing corporation or tribe or NGO or council or family or militia that runs the show. The pyramidion .

What happens when a gold institution falls? When the western half of Rome fell, the Church was there. The Church had hierarchy, rules, the trust of the community, infrastructure, land, knowledge. The Church was a silver institution, waiting in second place, ready to wax into fullness.

Behind the Confederacy, the KKK was there, a silver institution reflecting the bitter light of secession. After the war, the power fell into their hands, and a generation of cruelty unfolded.

When natural disaster befalls a community, silver institutions shine brightly. Hospitals and schools and scout troops come together and rescue people from rooftops or search for people buried in rubble.

Living in the Kali Yuga, gold institutions certainly seem to be falling to pieces. This seems to be true no matter where your vote swings: things are going to hell.

And when they do go to hell, and the arches are burning, and all the escape boats have been shot down, what silver institution will take the place of the hegemony? Will your community fall into the hands of a white supremacist militia, or a hippie commune, or a police state, or a community garden, or a theocratic cult, or a farm co-op?

Working at a school, I think that our building and our community is a strong contender for a silver institution. Students and families know how to get to the school. We have a kitchen. Community spaces for big meetings. Bathrooms. Tornado shelters. A garden and a greenhouse and an orchard. Technology and tools and trust.

What silver institutions are you part of? If all bets were off, with whom would you join your fate? I doubt that many people would go to their 9 to 5 in the event of an apocalypse. But, perhaps, you might go to the library, or community center, and seek shelter?

If food becomes scarce, do you have a community garden or orchard to rely on?

If clothing becomes unaffordable, do you know a weaver? A fiber guild? Someone with needles and thread?

These aren't questions meant to frighten. Look at the state of things. Everything is damned expensive and the future is uncertain at best, calamitous at worst. It is time to build up silver institutions that you believe in, because they may become gold sooner than you think.

We need new hearths to gather around.

To me, cultivating silver institutions is a much more resilient and practical strategy than hoarding beans and ammunition. I would argue that a clean, healthy river is a silver institution: if I can fish and eat my catch without contracting mercury poisoning, then I am less reliant on the current gold institution for groceries. When it collapses, I will not be so distraught, because I have a relationship to the silver institution of an ecologically rich waterway.

Every Sunday, I invite my friends over to my living-room-turned-workshop to make things. We craft for hours. We call it Folkroom. It is an anti-apocalyptic ceremony, our very own home-grown silver institution.

I urge you: find the silver.

"Develop a deep connection with place and material. Be as low-impact as possible. Use local materials as much as possible. If using new materials, make sure they are as responsibly-sourced as possible. Be experimental. Always consider potential use of objects, materials, and substance, especially before discarding anything. Work with natural processes: embrace cycles of change. Recording activity and experience is as much an outcome as "made" objects." - Alice Fox's artist manifesto, from her book Wild Textiles