Three new INVI members. Three different points of view. One common will for change.
What do an investor in planetary solutions, a democratic entrepreneur and a youth policy frontrunner have in common? They're all new members of INVI - and they've joined because they insist that our society can be shaped in new ways.
For Thomas Høgenhaven, it's about spotting what we have become accustomed to overlooking. Paul Natorp creates communities where everyday life becomes a place for change. And Christine Ravn Lund fights for a strong democracy where we can both disagree and get along.
We asked them why they chose to join INVI - and what drives them.
Thomas Høgenhaven, Managing Partner at Planetary Impact Ventures
"The places, plants, animals, materials, and objects that had once been as well-known as friends and family had become strangers, as had the people who worked with these materials. Things appeared from beyond the horizon, from beyond knowing, and knowing was an act of volition instead of a part of everyday life." - Rebecca Solnit
There is a special kind of silence that occurs when things we once knew become foreign. When we no longer know what's going on in the ground beneath us. Who produces our food. Where the materials come from. Whose hands sewed our sweaters. When what should be close by slips over the horizon - and you can only see it if you consciously turn your gaze that way. Solnit talks about how it takes an act of will to recognize the cost of our current life. That act of will is very rare - either because people don't have the resources to do it. Or because they can't be bothered.
I have great respect for those who have the courage and will for this act. INVI tries to see what has become invisible - and create spaces where it can be explored without becoming reductionist. That's why I want to be a member.
Paul Natorp, co-founder of Sager der Samler
I am interested in how we can create change from below based on everyday life. In 2012, together with four others, I initiated Sager der Samler, a citizen-driven democracy house in Aarhus with more than 30 organizations and 20,000 annual visitors. Here people support each other in turning powerlessness into action and the result is new communities of action.
Some small and some big, such as Social Health, which is now a significant civil society player. Together with the Green Youth Movement, The Kitchen at Aarhus University and Kooperationen, we are now starting a school for wild entrepreneurship called Utopia.
And together with a number of cultural centers, libraries and social housing houses, we are spreading our method of democratic hosting to vulnerable urban areas and neighborhoods around Denmark.
Being a member of INVI is important to me because we need each other. And I need to be part of a bigger conversation about how we move the world.
Christine Ravn Lund, Chairwoman of DUF
I am a member of INVI because I believe that we can and must develop and change our society for the better. For me, it is crucial that this happens democratically in a strong democracy. It doesn't happen by itself, and you can't take it for granted.
That's why it's so important that we can participate and take responsibility across the people in a way where we believe in politics and the decisions that drive our society forward. At the same time, we have to deal with and accept that there is no consensus on what a better society is and still act in a common reality where we believe in and accept each other.