Post-Mink: Farm or Non-Farm

performative lecture

2021

How can gaming the end of Dutch mink farming help us shape the spaces that are left behind? On August 28th 2020, the Dutch government expedited a ban on mink fur farming from 2024 to March 2021. The ban was accelerated not because of changes in consumer desires or changes in societal ethics, but as a direct consequence of the coronavirus detected in mink. The rapid pace of infections among mink and the transmission to humans lead Minister Schouten to order an immediate culling of 2.4 million minks from 120 mink fur farms. The cabinet reserved 150 millions euros to help mink fur farmers, a compensation based on how many mother minks each farm owned. It remains uncertain what will happen to the abandoned former mink farms.

During US: Shaping Time, Oddkin will speculate on different scenarios for spaces of abandoned former mink farms in the form of a scripted game. Post-Mink: Farm or Non-Farm will highlight how these empty former mink farms can become intensive spaces for a radically egalitarian, caring society, or remain exploited by commercial, profit oriented interests. Through the interactive live role play of a speculative mink farmer, with the help of the online audience, Oddkin will confront us with the ethical dilemma of how a series of individual decisions could invoke a collective planetary change.