What does growth mean nowadays? In an era of planetary emergency, voices for scaling down and changing pace multiply. Terms like ‘degrowth’ –, post development and ‘buen vivir’ (well living) are used more and more to highlight the need to acknowledge planetary interdependencies and set boundaries to the use of earth’s limited resources. At the same time, people and states around the world do not hold the same responsibility with regard to the issue. How can we articulate responses together and establish dialogues across geographies, discourses and practices that are committed to living otherwise?

Esc return addresses these topics through a gathering of diverse practitioners from the fields of art, design and architecture. Discussions will unfold around: the possibilities of traditional knowledges and low tech; the urge for practices of care, repair and maintenance; the empowerment of commons - and community based economies
; the importance of situated, land practices. Esc return is not an escapism action or a coming back measure. It it is rather a call for a constant re·calibration process, a termination of a given script based on economic growth and a collective re·execution: A constant, yet still dynamic UnReLearning process.

Mediengruppe Bitnik, María Belén Mora (Moneda Social Muyu —Ecuador), Kathleen Bomani, Kris de Decker, Teresa Dillon, Cristina Flores Pescorán, Fernando García Dory (INLAND), Nidia Catherine González, Javier Guzmán, Hajra Haider Karrar, Gilly Karjevsky, Valentina Karga, Elke Krasny, Laura Lotti, Daniela Medina Poch (embodied climate agency - eca), Joana Moll, Hypercomf, Kabila Stephane, Plateau Residue, Yin Aiwen, Pablo Somonte Ruano