Right now there is so very much to relearn. We can't assume that we will be able to travel, cross borders, be together indoors, all things that were a given in the previous editions of Relearn. This year, the material conditions of public moments of gathering such as Relearn come under scrutiny: the amount of energy, fuel, safety measures, etc. to make it possible with people coming from different places for a short amount of time.

This is why we are thinking of this edition in terms of focusing on our local, Rotterdam. We do not see this as a turn towards some purely localist vision. We still wish to summon the best of what Relearn can offer: an transnationalist perspective and a chance to experience new and old ideas. We aim to explore the importance of self-organisation and the use of experimental tools to build alternative systems and economies within the urban fabric of Rotterdam. We will be focusing on the materialities of the everyday — e.g. even the most modest of actions, such as purchasing or disposing of any of the trillions of plastic objects causes them to circulate through the twenty-first century and thousands of years into the future.