Social Change - Poiesis

The social world is permanently reshaped by processes of active making. Humans design new products as well as financial instruments, they create the architecture of a whole city and invent complex social institutions. These innovations reshape not only the appearance of our lifeworld but also they change our behavior, our beliefs and moral concepts. The research community “The Poiesis Fellowship - Design, Power and the Unanticipated in Social Change” explores the interdependencies between shifts in values, social infrastructure and the developments in various areas of life.

The Poiesis Fellowship is designed to nurture creativity in the understanding of poiesis, integrate such understanding into new theories and models, and promote the sharing of tools for deepening observation and analysis. It offers an opportunity for young scholars, artists, architects, engineers, and representatives of other professional disciplines to join in building collaborative relationships on an international scale at an early stage of their careers. The Fellowship is designed as a multi-disciplinary group of young and senior fellows who seek to look beyond their own disciplines and to contribute to an advanced debate.

The BMW Foundation, together with the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University and the Gerda Henkel Foundation, has established the Poiesis Fellowship. The mentors of the Poiesis Fellowship include: Ash Amin, Richard Burdett, Peter Claussen, Craig Calhoun, Manthia Diawara, Gerald Frug, Nilüfer Göle, Louis Kauffman, Bruno Latour, Klaus Mainzer, Saskia Sassen, and Alejandro Zaera-Polo.