Looking Outward

Francien van Westrenen

In 2017 Valiz published Facing Value. Radical Perspectives from the Arts in collaboration with Stroom Den Haag. Edited and written by Maaike Lauwaert and myself, Facing Value intended a modest contribution to a different kind of society.

The core values that drive how things are done and how people are treated shouldn’t be based on profit maximization, endless growth, efficiency, individualism and competition, but rather on more ephemeral values such as humanity, diversity, empathy, caring and trust. In order to develop those values we formulated nine strategies, such as Be unproductive, Share, Hesitate & Question and Support, that we derived from the works of artists, writers, designers and researchers. For this occasion I have edited and partly rewritten the final strategy, Unite, which is focused on the role of difference for living together.