Networks of Mutual Aid
Wyvern Art Fund is pleased to present Networks of Mutual Aid (NOMA), a culminating series of launch events of the 2025 Wyvern Art Fund Scholarship program which has brought together eight artists and thinkers over four-months to explore possible designs for inter-community (counter-)infrastructures.
Participants include Arc, Chris Dake-Outhet, Ziyad Hawwas, Miji Ih, Eren İleri, Nat Skoczylas, Juan Pablo García Sossa, Rain Lena Wegmann,
NOMA is an ongoing, decentralized collective effort to build mutual aid networks including tools such as NOMA WIKI, a self-hosted, wiki-to-print platform for sharing resources, knowledge, space, equipment, time, wisdom, and care with a RAG-powered locally-based LLM for interactive archiving; NOMA Potluck, a shared library seeding and feeding practice; NOMA Berlin Events Calendar, a federated, self-organized, socio-cultural and political community calendar; Enoki Meshroom, an experiment with mesh network devices for under-the-radar communication; Slurrrplus, ongoing research on commons and surplus production; and a Liquidarity Savings Fund to support local organisers, communities and mutual aid efforts.
Launch events for these efforts will take place at offline on Thursday, July 24 and Casino for Social Medicine on Tuesday, July 29. See further information below.
Enoki Meshroom
Date: Thursday, July 24 @ 17:00
Location: offline, Lichtenrader Str. 49, 12049 Berlin (U8 Boddinstraße)
The paracommons and parapractices of mesh networks – interdependent communities and embodied gestures
Beyond verbal communication and relational interdependence, Enoki Meshroom reclaims and relearns technologies as locally situated and embodied movements of resistance. With every enoki mesh device, the local parastructure – and thereby paracommons – grows and finds new mycelic parapractices to move fragile or meshi information in-between more-than-one and beyond normative networks.
This hands-on workshop introduces participants to mesh networks through the Meshtastic protocol, combining practical device exploration with a location-based LARP on the Tempelhofer Feld. The session begins with an introduction to the Meshtastic protocol, hardware, and other mesh systems. We then continue outdoors, using Meshtastic devices to navigate through an algae wetland and wasteland to our final destination. Participants will discover how mesh networks function in real-world scenarios while engaging through speculative gameplay. The event also introduces our Meshtastic device sharing and borrowing system. Participants are welcome to bring their own Meshtastic devices if available, though no prior knowledge is required. Weather dependant clothing is recommended.
- 16:45 — Soft arrival, meet & greet
- 17:15 — Intro to Meshtastic protocol, hardware and other Mesh systems
- 17:45 — Break
- 18:00–19:00 — LARP on the Tempelhofer Feld (with open end)
NOMA Sari-sari
Date: Tuesday, July 29 @ 14:00
Location: Casino for Social Medicine, Sonnenallee 100, 12045 Berlin (U7 Rathaus Neukölln)
A sari-sari corner shop is a ubiquitous small convenience store found in Filipino neighborhoods. The word sari-sari is Tagalog meaning "variety" or "sundry." Our sari-sari is a small, abundant, ever-changing convenience stand found at the corner of our shared digital kiez. It hosts our resources the way a sari-sari cradles sweets, jars, rice by the scoop, single cigarettes, sachets of shampoo, love notes, and Tita’s gossip. It is stocked with tiny and big things alike: recipes, notes, codes, playlists, jokes, diagrams, old tales, new protocols. It is filled with a lively clutter and is a place of proximity, trust, repetition, and surprise – a colorful corner shop of our shared lives and knowledges.
But this sari-sari doesn’t fill itself. So, we hold NOMA Potluck gatherings – regular moments where we come together to feast, chat, and each bring an offering to place on the sari-sari shelves including our NOMA Wiki, a self-hosted, wiki-to-print platform for sharing resources, knowledge, space, equipment, time, wisdom, and care; and our NOMA Berlin Events Calendar, a federated, self-organized, socio-cultural and political community calendar.
In this sari-sari parastructure, the mesh network is a paracommon, a material resource of decentralized technical devices. Like an enoki mushroom with many needles that grows/parasites on the walls of the NOMA sari-sari, Mesh networks are as well as mycelic parapractices (gestures and protocols to transport information, feelings, embodied movements) that form pararelations, socially fruiting meshroom-bodies with and in-between communities where many things can be lent and shared. Our Enoki Meshroom reclaims and relearns technologies as locally situated and embodied movements of resistance, while Slurrrplus feeds the ecosystem with ongoing research on commons and surplus production and a Liquidarity Savings Fund bubbles up to support local organisers, communities and mutual aid efforts.
Please join us to learn more!- 14:00–19:00 — Sari-sari Open House - an informal introduction to NOMA tools
- 16:00 — NOMA Potluck - a shared library seeding and feeding practice - Please bring your offerings!
- 19:00 — NOMA Presentations + dinner, drinks, music - a presentation of NOMA tools and ongoing efforts followed by dinner, drinks and music
Additionally, NOMA is pleased to present the launch of the Post-Platform Digital Publishing Toolkit (PPDPT) zine. Post-Platform Digital Publishing Toolkit is a project exploring how to overcome the limitations of digital publishing today and advocates self-hosting methods for artists and artists' book publishers. The project started as a documentation of Well Gedacht Publishing's quest to break free from the ever-enshittifying products, services, and platforms run by the oligarchic big tech and move towards self-hosting data, websites, and services. The wiki features guides on how to self-host static websites and online services at home, create your own RSS feeds, and use the open source tool Pandoc to convert rich text files to HTML.
More info on the PPDPT zine: publishing.wellgedacht.com
Accessibility Info
Networks of Mutual Aid (NOMA) presents a series of soft and relaxed launch events to meet, share and practice together in an experimental way. Please feel free to drop in and and out of events whenever you want. There are some events with specific start times but you can still join at a different time. We will have breaks included in our relaxed schedules. However, taking breaks related to your own needs is welcome. Visitors are welcome to move around the spaces and sitting still is optional. You are welcome to bring your support humans, buddies, items or fidgets.
The general spoken language is English. Please do not hesitate to ask questions throughout all events if there is something that is not clearly communicated and/or the language is unclear or unknown. We are happy to clarifying any terms, vocabulary, concepts, etc. as needed and will try and speak in understandable words and at an easy pace. We cannot offer sign language but we can attempt to offer whisper translations with others as needed.
There is no personal identification required to enter and we do not call the police.
All events are free entry.
Please come tested.
offline: Space is located on the ground floor. The entrance has a single 15cm step up to a 96cm wide front door, which opens outwards toward the street. There is one gender neutral bathroom that is not wheelchair accessible. The bathroom has a 58cm wide door with no grab bars. However, it is walkable and there is a wall. The space in non-smoking and there is a small air filter as needed. There are soft and hard seats such as wooden chairs, sofas, and stools. The floor is mostly wooden. The event at offline will include an invitation to visit Floating University nearby. Please see their accessibility information here: floating-berlin.org/site/accessibility
Casino: Space is on street level with access through a door without any steps. The door is more than 90cm and opens toward the inside. The space includes various seating options including sofas, wooden chairs and cushy benches. The space is permanently non-smoking, has a functioning air change system and uses low scent cleaning supplies. Face masks are available for free at the bar. Bathrooms are in the basement, reachable by a flight of 10 stairs, and are not wheelchair accessible. Bathrooms are not gender-assigned. Dogs are allowed, however, check-in with other people around them about their comfort and possible allergies.