æther is an artistic, philosophic playground and research space for new societal imagination. It explores what might emerge when we stop treating our societal systems as inevitable.
about me and æther
My name is Myra Beckers and æther emerged as a kind of residue of my life. It’s not something I came up with, but more like a desire path forming in between everything else.
æther is an artistic playground and research space for new societal imagination.
I went to an art academy, a nautical college and a business university. I make illustrations, translate difficult stories into accessible ones and occasionally do graphic design work. I worked in a large theatre, with drug users and homeless people, and I taught theatre classes to kindergarten children. I travelled across the world. I became a pirate on a sailing cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean. I lived in Berlin, Honolulu and Amsterdam. I speak a regional dialect from the south of the Netherlands, and my mother taught me everything about spirituality and how to integrate it into everyday life. My father hits steel with heavy hammers and when he became ill, I ran his company for two years.
When the bigger existential questions resurfaced and I started asking myself what I actually wanted to do with my life, I suddenly saw the desire path that had formed itself through all those movements — and through a time that feels ready for change.
reach out
I’d love to hear your ideas. Feel free to reach out at info@from-aether.com.
about the why
I believe that whatever receives attention has the possibility to grow. A lot of attention goes towards negative news, fear and panic. A lot of attention also goes towards analysis, and we’ve become fairly good at explaining why things are the way they are. But there is still very little conversation about what we actually want to create for the future. I want to help shift attention towards that.
There are many good ideas for making our world better. I believe those ideas can only become truly sustainable and effective if we take a serious look at the socioeconomic systems underneath them. We can all try to live better lives individually, but as long as the systems beneath us remain dependent on endless growth, it can still feel like we are moving against the current. That is why we need a new breeding ground for ideas. The consequences of systemic inequality and discrimination run through the capillaries of our society. As long as economic interests remain the dominant interests, we continue to reinforce the status quo.
Surely it can be done differently, and maybe we simply haven’t discovered how yet. æther is about loosening ourselves from old ideas about our socioeconomic systems. About playfully exploring together which assumptions and conditions we want to build our world upon. Maybe we’ll discover forms of living that are far more flexible than we currently imagine. Not something carved in stone, but a lighter and more joyful way of living together. A way of supporting life, instead of asking life to support the system.
about form
æther is a space, a playground, a salon for the emergence of new thought. If we could begin assembling our world again from scratch, what might it look like? What could emerge at the intersection of philosophical, artistic and academic research? What might a post-capitalist world look like?
If æther were to take shape, it would partly function as a connective platform facilitating collectivity between existing systems thinkers, artists and researchers working around these themes. This could take the form of a festival, a public platform, or simply creating space for conversations to emerge. At the same time, æther also searches for forms of expression beyond language. This could become an interactive artwork, a playful intervention or a movement-based practice. It is often precisely at the intersection between disciplines that space opens up for genuinely new ideas.