Decentralised Networks of Care: The Para-Real as Mutual Aid
Channel: New Design Congress
Date: 24/09/2023

The Para-Real: Finding the Future in Unexpected Places // EPISODE 3

In an era of fractured exploitation and inequality, how can we take health and care back into our hands? The Hologram is social medicine for a cooperative species and is a bold vision for revolutionary care: a viral, peer-to-peer feminist health network. Years in development, the Hologram had already begun to grow before the events of 2020. But it's timing could not have been more critical. The Hologram's online work began almost exactly after the moment when the day before became "life before." And when we sat, minds racing in our homes and thinking and fearing the unthinkable, the Hologram was already in motion. One part art, one part activism and one part science fiction, Cassie Thornton, Shawn Chua and Lauren Klein describe their process of seizing and re-purposing platforms to create a desperately needed and blossoming practice based support structure.