A year later, the Kumpula exchange rink, renamed the Helsinki Timebank, began to attract more citizens who wanted to participate in this satisfying alternative economy known as timebanking. The main principle of timebanking is that everyone’s time, work and needs are of equal worth. One hour of babysitting is equal to one hour of helping an elderly neighbor or providing accounting services. It is fair to say that this essential principle of timebanking stands in stark contrast to the premises of the current money system and capitalist markets, which value everyone’s time and effort in highly unequal ways. Timebanking provides an alternative by helping people meet important personal and household needs in more socially satisfying, equal ways.

By 2014 some 3,000 members had registered with the Helsinki Timebank, and more than one-third had participated in at least one exchange. To date, some 19,000 total hours have been exchanged through the Helsinki Timebank, which includes internal work to maintain and develop the timebank. Worldwide there are thousands of timebanks that enable individuals and diverse types of organizations to exchange services, and sometimes goods, according to timebanking’s principles. The Timebank is a part of the Community Exchange System (www.ces.org.za), which lets people exchange goods and services without money or markets. (The network hosts timebanks and local currencies, facilitating “intertrading” among them.)

Timebanks are often seen as irrelevant to the “real economy” because they are not dealing with “economic issues” or markets. They tend to be described as self-help tools, as solvers of certain social problems, as charities, and as a new form of volunteering. They are seen as platforms for people to develop skills and exchange nonprofessional services while strengthening their sense of community connection. Yet in meeting real needs without money while building what economists call “social capital,” timebanks deserve to be taken every bit as seriously as markets.

Developing Currency into a Commons

Since its founding, Helsinki Timebank has striven to be a platform of deliberation. It is managed by a core group, open to all members, which discusses how to develop the timebank and meet ongoing challenges. All larger and substantial decisions are made in consultation with all Timebank members, or by voting. For instance, the decision to convert the local exchange rink into Helsinki Timebank in 2010 and to name its local currency “Tovi” (Finnish for “a moment”) was made through a membership vote.

When a large cosmetic firm with its own exchange rink wanted to join Helsinki Timebank, it provoked spirited discussion about what kinds of services and relations should be supported and how to define the Timebank’s boundaries. Inspired by the example of the Solidarity Economy movement, members in May 2013 drafted the Helsinki Timebank’s ABC, a statement of its values and working principles. The ABC defines the Timebank as a platform for “reciprocity, We-spirit, ecological sustainability, economic justice, and local and participatory culture,” among other principles that guide participants in deciding what types of organizations may join Helsinki Timebank.

When a local food cooperative wanted to join Helsinki Timebank, it was a perfect fit – and an ingenious way to blend the local market with the credit currency. The cooperative makes locally produced food available to people with time-credits – and in return it gains access to the community and resources for which time-credits can be exchanged.

Another example of commoning can be found in the “Time Heals Network,” which grew out of Helsinki Timebank.¹  This peer-to-peer network offers emotional support to people when their lives take a turn for the worse; the services are credited to the providers in time-credits. Peer supporters themselves may have acquired their expertise through formal education, employment or life experiences. The system is based on reciprocity – sometimes one helps someone else, sometimes one receives help. The network also uses the timebank to help people meet concrete needs like housekeeping and childcare.

The time currency in itself, the Tovi, is not a commodity, but a token in a “credit commons” that allows people to exchange services, earning and spending credits. The process of defining the principles and rules of the credit currency is itself a process of commoning, a term used by historian Peter Linebaugh in discussing medieval English commons. In this sense, Helsinki Timebank’s time credits function as a pedagogical tool that helps people learn about cooperation and organization. Strangers are able to meet each other and develop new ways of relating to each other. Thanks to a timebank, the valuable human skills that people have – even among people outside of the labor market, such as the elderly and disabled – can be made visible and put to good use. Timebanks help people reproduce ordinary life without the mediation of markets. A timebank as such is a platform for commoning.²

One major act of commoning at Helsinki Timebank was the development of an internal taxation mechanism. When the provider of a service receives time-credits, a percentage of the time-credits earned are automatically transferred to the account of an ethical economic actor of choice in the Helsinki Timebank; this could be a food cooperative, another local CSA, or the Time Heals Network, for example. The time-tax function lets Timebank members strengthen actors and organizations that exemplify the values listed in the ABC. It also supports work that is important to timebank members, and strengthens and develops the community. In a larger context the time-tax and time-credit can be seen as ways that Helsinki Timebank supports solidarity economy-building and the commons in Finland.

Facing the Challenge of State Policy

At the end of 2013, Finland tax authorities came out with new taxation guidelines that required taxing skilled work services received through timebanks according to their market value (in euros). Helsinki Timebank contested this decision, arguing that it destroys the essential principle of equality at the heart of timebanking. It called for an exemption from euro taxation so that the actual potential of timebanking in Finland – including also the benefits of the (internal) time-tax – could be assessed. The dialogue was opened between Helsinki Timebank and the City of Helsinki in 2014 and is still continuing.

The struggle that Helsinki Timebank now faces is to maintain its autonomy as a deliberative commons guided by strong ethical values while securing formal legal recognition and respect in Finnish society. One initiative seeks to find ways for the City of Helsinki to recognize the Timebank’s internal time-tax and incorporate it into the local economy. If successful, the time-tax could be used to support many different forms of coproduction (between timebankers and the city). It could also be used to start up all kinds of autonomous creative projects as commons, creating services or goods that are deemed important by both the city and timebank members. Importantly, this could open up new forms of power transfer and sharing within the city – a commonification of the public sector!³

An interesting future question is whether timebanking could be used as a tool for ethical entrepreneurs to share common resources and gain relative autonomy from markets. This would help the new economy strengthen commons and reduce dependence on highly capitalized markets and competition. Unfortunately, in Finland, this road is now blocked by rigid taxation guidelines that prevent the exchange of professional services via timebanks. It would appear that the guidelines are intended to prevent timebanking from growing and challenging the dominance of both market and state, and the capitalistic order itself.

Patterns of Commoning, edited by Silke Helfrich and David Bollier, is being serialized in the P2P Foundation blog. Visit the Patterns of Commoning and Commons Strategies Group websites for more resources.

About the authors

Jukka Peltokoski (Finland) is a political researcher and pedagogue, an activist in the precarity movement, a commoner in Commons.

Niklas Toivakainen (Finland) is an active member of Helsinki Timebank, and a member of Commons.fi and the Finnish Solidarity economy collective.

Tero Toivanen (Finland) is a doctoral student in World Politics at the University of Helsinki.

Ruby van der Wekken (Finland) is an active member of Helsinki Timebank, and a member of Commons.fi and the Finnish Solidarity Economy collective.

Photo by pni

The post Patterns of Commoning: Helsinki Timebank: Currency as a Commons appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Pixelache Festival in Suvilahti cultural complex, Helsinki, 22nd-24th September 2017

Pixelache Festival happens in and around Oranssi‘s Valvomo building, in Suvilahti cultural complex Helsinki, 22nd-24th September 2017. The festival activities aim to reflect on decentralisation of power by collectively designing the programme and building its venue in 2018.

After the 2015 festival that travelled through public and private Living Spaces, and the 2016 festival delving deep into Interfaces for Empathy, Pixelache Helsinki festival 2017 gathers stories of local & decentralised governance. Tapping into the shift from centralised-capital based economies to decentralised peer-based resource distribution, we offer the festival as a meeting point for local initiatives working on similar experiences, as well as a forum to plan a future together. In this way we build and expand upon our experience of Camp Pixelache past events, where the festival content was shaped together, and Open Source Festivals project, where knowledge about production was shared.

The 2017 festival edition is titled Local & Decentralised and it hosts an assembly to reflect on decentralisation of power in different fields. Local and decentralised governance seems to happen when collective design and a tangible group effort come together. In order to materialize the festival theme itself, reflecting perhaps on the current construction of Helsinki city and how buildings relate with their environment and the needs of inhabitants, during the festival in 2017 we aim to form an assembly inviting the local community into the collective design of a public venue and the content for the 2018 edition of the festival.

In 2017 the festival activities will happen in and next to Oranssi premises from 22.9 to 24.9. The role of Oranssi organisation, of Suvilahti permanent tenants, and of Pixelache members’ contributions is an important as part of the main program in 2017, for the identity of Local & Decentralised, and as a trigger for the activities in 2018.

The 2018 iteration of Pixelache festival is also committed to take place again in Suvilahti, featuring a collaboratively-built venue next to existing DIY areas such as the skate-park. The new spatial and conceptual configurations, made together with the festival participants over two festival editions, aim to create fluid places where collaborative knowledge is applied, and where new ideas emerge for future cooperations.

Major developments of decentralization can and do occur: currency, energy, resources, and feelings are being decentralised and distributed. These developments bring about problems that cannot be solved on a purely conceptual level; they need to be embodied and lived through for a shift to yet different models. Thus fear of the unforeseen and unpredictable must also be addressed.

From the festival activities stories emerge that depict how governance functions between civil society, individual initiatives and government, and also how citizens themselves connect into structures where governance happens locally, and where we can come to terms with inefficiencies, passivity, interests, time, jargon.

How is it possible to express a multiplicity of will, is the present practice of a State effective enough to convey it? Often the movements towards local and decentralised structures are related to privatisation in economical models, how can diverse collective interest meet on economical terms? Can we be local and decentralised and yet be connected globally, micro-organisms breathing within a vast complex macro system?

Local & Decentralised festival does not let you down, it will be your local event to differentiate consensus from silence: talking of ecological issues, promoting visual culture as a shield against pessimism, presenting how democracy benefits from digital media -or not, playing games to prove that we are as connected as we are, offering workshops to learn again the pleasure of learning things together, finding music and contemporary art that make sense more than science, and divulging science as creative as drama.

The festival is free entrance and suitable for families, you are welcome to share food and bring your towel for sauna.

VENUES, PLACES AND SCHEDULE

— Local & Decentralised festival program at Oranssi and MUU Galleria

From 22.9 to 24.9.2017 – Festival and Public Assembly at Oranssi, Valvomo building in Suvilahti.

From 21.9. To 26.9.2017 – Exhibition ‘Pixelache and Koelse 15 years’ curated by Antti Ahonen, at MUU Galleria, Lönnrotinkatu 33, Helsinki.

— Pixelache Helsinki 2018 festival preliminary program at Suvilahti

From 13.9 to 19.9.2018 – Construction site for the Decentralised venue at skate-park, next to Valvomo building in Suvilahti.

From 21.9 to 23.9.2018 – Festival activities both at Oranssi, Valvomo building, and at the Decentralised venue, close to skate park
next to Valvomo.

Consult map of Suvilahti area.

CONTACT FESTIVAL DIRECTORS

Egle Oddo, egle [-ät-] pixelache.ac

Local & Decentralised festival is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Helsinki Cultural Office, and Svenska kulturfonden.

The post Pixelache Helsinki 2017 Festival Announcement: Local & Decentralised appeared first on P2P Foundation.

ZEMOS98 will bring feminist-orientated care and warmth, Remix for Bien común (Remix for the Commons), Commons spirit and Love to the North. In particular they will share their Audiovisual Source Code (Código Fuente Audiovisual) format and approach. We are hopeful we can all benefit from a ‘Finnish Summer of CopyLove’ gathering peer-support and attention to contribute to their and our dreams come true.

During Zemos98’s visit to Helsinki we will organize several events in the framework of the Pixelache Festival. We will be disseminating open practices and open formats for audiovisual creation that we firmly believe contribute to co-create ways of performing multi-cultural understanding, increase the connections between South-North, and allow us all to contribute to much needed empathy and care in the world.

Main features

During Zemos98 visit to Pixalache festival in Helsinki we will organize:

• 2-3 public presentation events in Helsinki on the topic of CopyLove and Interfaces for Empathy. The events will take place during the Pixelache festival days 22-25.9.2016. They will be live-streamed, and the documentation archived online with commons-orientated licenses. One of the events will be in Spanish, and the other one or two in English. All the events will be simultaneously translated to another language (either English or Finnish).
• 1 CopyLove workshop (registration-based) on the topic of Caring for Each Other and Interdependence. In the workshop we will crowdsource ideas and approaches towards promoting care-economics and caring commons and we will co-design and co-produce an open manual. This manual will be shared post-event with text content variably in English, Spanish and Finnish.
  Related events according to reward scheme to peer-supporters (See rewards).

Why this is important

CopyLove and Empathy are themes that speak to the current environment of tension, division and isolation that communities feel are encroaching their everyday lives. Instead, Pixelache festival creates a different narrative of collaboration and empathy that we think will greatly benefit from the input of our colleagues from Zemos98.

To bring Zemos98 to Pixelache we want to reach out to:

1. Citizens worried about increasing intolerance in Finnish society and want to support concrete actions that create new narratives.

2: Alternative Economy Cultures -oriented initiatives, including crowdfunding & feminist/care economics that want to cross-pollinate their thinking across Europe.

3. To the Spanish-speaking community in the Finnish metropolitan (Helsinki)-region.

4. The Open/AvoinGLAM and AV practitioners, activists and researchers who want to learn more about the Audiovisual Source-code method and event-format, and Remix for the Commons approach.

Goals of the crowdfunding campaign

– Develop, disseminate and encourage the Audiovisual Source-code format as a way to talk and generate empathy and CopyLove.

– Make migrant and local connections between North-South.

– Promote Goteo and commons-orientated crowd-funding in Northern Europe.

Team and experience

We are sister festivals that only recently met after all our time apart. We care.

Pixelache people have been making their festival since 2002 in Helsinki, Finland. Zemos98 people have been making their festival since 1998 in Sevilla, Finland. Both have grown up to absorb trans-disciplinary subjects and to promote Caring for the Commons around the same time (2014-2015). ZEMOS98 took the theme CopyLove as it’s festival theme in years 2012-2013 and made a successful related Goteo campaign. ZEMOS98 no longer produces a festival but focuses on other projects and has consolidated a good network around these topics in the South of Europe. Pixelache Festival in Helsinki is partly supported by the Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education and City of Helsinki, this year the full-time and part-time staff employed by the association are also co-directors of the festival (Petri Ruikka and Mari Keski-Korsu respectively). Pixelache has strong presence in the Northern European cultural scene, and benefits from a broad international network.

We Care.. We are not only colleagues, but best of friends, and we want to bridge across South-North.

The people specifically, focusing on the Finland-based branch of the CopyLove Helsinki campaign will be:

Andrew Gryf Paterson from Pixelache has been an artist-organiser for over 12 years in Helsinki and internationally with a strong profile, focused on open-source culture and Commons-oriented strategies. In 2009 he organised the Alternative Economy Cultures symposium in that year’s festival, whereby the 2 keynote speaker’s (Michel Bauwens and Michael Albert)’s travel costs from Madrid and Massachusetts USA were fully crowdfunded. Previously part-time staff role for 4 years, he is again on the association’s board with responsibility for International Networks and Archival-tendencies.

Andrea Botero is a Colombian designer and researcher based in Helsinki for over 10 years, with a keen interest in caring for the commons and participatory methods. She is co-editor of the Peer-Production in Public Services: Cases from Finland ebook (together with Paterson and Joanna Suud-Salonen), and has been lead-researcher on co-p2p.mlog.taik.fi platform at Aalto University.

Mariana Salgado is an Argentinean design researcher that has worked 10 years in the cultural sector in Finland, and has actively contributed to the Finnish chapter of OpenGLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). She was invited last year to the Hackathon Caring for the Commons at 17th ZEMOS98 Festival, and got inspired by the CopyLove sessions and Zemos98 activities. She published in Spanish the book: Diseñando un Museo Abierto (Designing an Open Museum, 2010). Mariana is an activist in her neighbourhood, and within the Spanish speaking community in Finland.

Support the Campaign here.

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