A five-weekend journey with Bayo Akomolafe

March 18 — 20 | May 27 — 29 | July 22 — 24 | September 9 — 11 | October 7 — 9, 2022

- Lectures, discussion, and sitting-with-impossible-questions
- Two hours Fri/Sat/Sun respectively
- In community, with special guests
- Not a typical business course
- An invitation to go deeper

House philosopher-in-residence Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a widely celebrated international speaker, teacher, public intellectual, and writer, and one of the most exciting voices of a new posthumanist and postactivist movement that examines the concerns of life beyond the human species and traditional notions of “agency.” His deep questions and concerns for decolonized landscapes have led him to explore the nuances of a “magical” world “too promiscuous to fit neatly into our fondest notions of it.” His quest to “come down to Earth” and “slow down” serve as a stark provocation for a business world that in large part resembles the opposite of it.

In this series of inquiries, conversations, and experiences, including special guests, Bayo will convene a shared inquiry into the many hearts of our extraordinarily challenging times as a way of mobilizing new philosophies and orientations for business that reconnect us more profoundly with the emerging nature of our be(com)ing.

The weekend of engagements, participation will be divided into Bayo’s interactive lectures, a forum for playful inquiry led by a group of Bayo’s friends called ‘Abayomi’. The final day of the three will be dedicated to the Bakhita Project, a post-anthropocentric research platform that invites speculative fabulation and other forms of meeting the world outside of its rectilinear conveniences.

The Bakhita Project is an opportunity for participants and participant organizations to join the weekends as research hubs.

The series is open to the public and is for everyone who cares about how we can use business to enable more beautiful lives. Participants can join live and will have access to the recordings as well as all materials.

All past sessions are recorded and you will have access to all materials—for a reduced price of 1440 EUR (instead of the 1800 EUR regular price). 50% discount for students, start-ups, and nonprofits—email us for details.

What to expect

Each session will go from 10:00 - 12:00 pm EST | 4:00 - 6:00 pm CET (view program)

Friday, March 18 - Sunday, March 20, 2022

We Need a Break!

The Great Resignation; the COVID-19 pandemic; cyborgian-posthumanist flows; leadership; the imperial legacies of business; assemblage; climate chaos; the Anthropocene; failure as catalyst; what kinds of business leaders are needed today? Business as inquiry.

Friday, May 27 - Sunday, May 29, 2022

The Threat of Solutions: When Sustainability Becomes Unsustainable

Images; the familiar; reframing responsibility; postactivism; errant breakthroughs from circuitous flows; the uncertain; what might becoming accountable to a world that flows look like?

With Minna Salami, afrofeminist and author of Sensuous Knowledge

Friday, July 22 - Sunday, July 24, 2022

The Anatomy of a Crack: Generative Incapacitation and the Gift of Failure

Selah; ethnographies of the new; trauma. business as therapy. Slavoj’s event; playing with failure; cartographies of loss; what do the collapses of these moments mean for business continuity? What ethical moves are possible in the face of this excess?

With Charles Eisenstein, philosopher and author and Nora Bateson, founder of the International Bateson Institute

Friday, September 9 - Sunday, September 11, 2022

Making Sanctuary

The Afrocene and the Anthropocene. Thinking the future. Business as mode of making care. Futures literacy. Making sanctuary as an invitation to the risk.

With Dr. Riel Miller, head of futures literacy, UNESCO

Friday, October 7 - Sunday, October 9, 2022

Money and a Post-Capitalist World

A discussion with Alnoor Ladha, board member of Culture Hack Labs