Regulatory frictions as spaces of innovation (FRICTIONS): Centring the transformative administrative practices of small-scale cultural initiatives as empowering tools to engage with the climate crisis

FRICTIONS investigates the substantial gap between European policy commitments for a climate-neutral economy, and the reality on the ground for small initiatives across Europe, who are making transformative endeavours for climate action in their own communities, but face regulatory systems that do not fit the visionary work they do.

FRICTIONS engages with this impasse at a practical level, through the day-to-day practice of administration as a place where new, innovative procedures, relations and ways of thinking about regulation can be imagined and forged.

The research approach departs from notions of progress and modernity that characterise much of transition discourse, to concentrate instead on systems change at the micro-level of habit, everyday process and experience – with particular focus on procedural spaces and relationships where things often feel stuck.

Drawing on my research practice as an artist-activist working across art, business and social fields, the research objectives are to 1) unearth, illuminate and negotiate the kinds of regulatory frictions that small, sustainably-minded organisations regularly encounter and the innovative actions they are already making; 2) design creative experiments in administrative practice for how such organisations can prefiguratively navigate complex regulatory systems across different EU jurisdictions; and 3) establish new channels, procedures and vocabulary to promote innovative administrative practice as a transformative means to strengthen and sustain culture-led innovation for the EU's critical ecological transition.

To achieve these objectives, FRICTIONS will engage methods from participatory action research and tactical art, working collaboratively with 3 exemplary small-scale cultural initiatives (NL/SI/HR), and establish a new research centre, the Institute for Experiments with Business (IBEX), as a platform to continue this work beyond FRICTIONS.