#bilberriesblueopencatalogue is a gift for all.

BILBERRIES BLUE: OPEN STUDIOS

April 23 – May 22, 2021

how we got from here to there, everywhere, nowhere, upside down, inside out, and eventually arriving in the ability to re-create one’s self,

through a journey from impossibilities to possibilities?

Bilberries Blue: Open Studios was conceived today as we are re-creating the new form of BB Studio. Perhaps it is going to be a disassembling, and then, relocating, or maybe, some parts of BB Studio will go into different communities and ecosystems, to serve as a 3D-2D-virtual travelling exhibition libraries, a pedagogical provocation that prompts reflections.

Reflections about what? I think it is about the purpose of Bilberries Blue. The Why of a space, a place, an organisation, a business. The test is this, if we didn’t exist, what would the world have missed? And tonight, as I am reflecting regarding the future of Bilberries Blue, and my participation in it, I think, many possibilities would not have happened, if Bilberries Blue had not existed, and many deepening of what we had started, would also not bear fruit, if we don’t continue.

And maybe, re-creation requires this kind of deep humbling appreciation of the significance, kindness and beauty of one’s work, before a decision and a determination really can take root, for the next significant leap into the unknown. Something good wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and how could we not keep making good worlds. How could we not, and suddenly, what I had thought of as such a difficult journey suddenly opened up.

I don’t beat myself for not having crystallised the vision yet, nor feel so empty with the non-visibility of the accomplishments. Nor feel so burdened that we haven’t been able to make the business model work for everyone.

These thoughts have weighed me down so terribly as I was dreading confronting where I am as a co-founder of Bilberries Blue. Everyone has said to me: you are taking too long. And I have said to myself: I have failed.

Good, real and deep things, especially beautiful friendships, and love, they are a journey of step by step, and tears and laughter, disagreements and solidarity, incredible results and disastrous outcomes. Mistakes, and pondering upon pondering, but tried as I did, I couldn’t make the connection, much less the communication: nobody knows this world. Yet.

But, if we just keep to the mundane, and same old formulas, and safe zones: will we feel alive? And will we know such pain of invisibility, and will we grow such kindness for ourselves – for not compromising, and bearing the full blown brunt and outcome of losing the acceptances of worldly measures of successes?

Especially, even when the most faithful of friends walk out of the dream.

I don’t know how such moments of kindness arrive, and when they do, I can only be glad for them. It means I am no longer doubtful of my past decisions, nor beat myself up at the imbalances from the worldly view, and maybe, it’s been mine. Maybe I am the one who don’t dare let go of my own comfort zone. Maybe I just keep going. Because if I keep going, it all keeps going. And if I stop, it will all stop, and I couldn’t bear a world that didn’t have Bilberries Blue.

I feel like I am talking about a pudding or a teddy bear. 

This is the thing about Bilberries Blue – we have this endless joy and madclapping that keep frothing up from out of nowhere, and what does it do?

It keeps us alive. The nonsensical chic keeps us alive, and adds colour to this world that might be a little too OTT with too much swagger and no deep traction, or too drab with solemn absolute certain seriousness. But having said that, we are a little out of balance, and will have to focus more on our funding and business model at this inflexion point.

Economic empowerment matters, especially when we are building and making good stuff and worlds.

Peng-Ean Khoo
Sustainability Steward
Bilberries Blue
#bilberriesblueopenstudios
April 16, 2021

BILBERRIES BLUE SUMMER SCHOOL: 5 THURSDAYS TO CAMBRIDGE

In Bilberries Blue Summer School: 5 Thursdays to Cambridge, Bilberries Blue will figure the funding for our promise to each other to meet in Cambridge, to spend precious time together reflecting and sharing our journey from impossibilities to possibilities. As we are a school of life, and have been, and we are now at a global level, because we make it so, we want to celebrate this, and participate in research and practitioner directions of sustainable development, sustainable entrepreneurism, full inclusion, work-life integration in places of possibilities, and the daily perspective and commitment to the positive re-creation of the gift and joy of life – in homes, communities, workplaces, marketplaces – glocally.

When we have a dream, we need to make it happen. Otherwise, we live it not.

“The conversations with these youths are the fruits of their shared experience which is at the core of one`s existence, the ability to re- create one`s self.” – Bernadette Cenzon

In this session, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvJtXFgHOC9KRTkbB2uQbeYf3JVxYhPQF, Bernadette Cenzon, Vashima Goyal and Peng-Ean Khoo reflected on the foundation of Bilberries Blue Summer School. Re-create was our foundational turning point where everyday learning suddenly became everyday re-creating of oneself.

The insight we received:

When we become a school of our ownself, we can then become our own school.

And so, at Session #7 of Bilberries Blue Youth Stewardship Programme on “Journey of Possibilities” Milestone #3 Re-Create, we found the birthstone of Bilberries Blue Summer School: Re-creating oneself everyday.

Herein lies the empowerment that we have sought, a toolkit of life. With that, we are able to integrate all the various groups in Bilberries Blue that we have been emerged and evolved over the years but that we could not connect, integrate, synthesise, until we found this nugget.

The ability to re-create oneself everyday.

It is not possible to re-create oneself without mistakes, and admitting to mistakes, and then making a determination to re-direct, or re-create oneself. In reflecting upon the state of our humanity on earth, this is really one of the most empowering and enabling abilities, because, once acquired, and becomes a habit of mind, or a way of life, it allows us to take stock everyday – honestly, realistically, and yet, positively and self-determinedly even through our mistakes and failures.

We don’t perish because of our inalterable dignity. Instead, we become enriched by EVERY EXPERIENCE, because even and especially a failure, informs a re-create moment, i.e. it is contextualised in an honest decision & action of the re-creation of oneself.

It is at once, a sobering yet paradoxically liberating, insight. The inalterable dignity is rooted in the pedagogy of life, or pedagogy of humanness, and cannot be measured in extrinsic activities. It’s about the person. The oneself.

Why 5 Thursdays to Cambridge? Please stay tuned in. The adventure unfoldeth.

Bilberries Blue
#bilberriesbluesummerschool