As Event Production Assistant during the Weird Economies x Scotland event series, I encountered new way of engaging with questions around economics, social structures, and collective experience, prompted by Bahar Noorizadeh’s practice.
To owe is to belong within a network of mutual reliance
I’ve stopped approaching debt as just money you owe someone and began seeing it as something that exists in all parts of life. It is not always caused by one clear origin or instigator but exists in the way people depend on each other. Debt can mean obligations to family, society, history, and the people who support us. But we also inherit these responsibilities. Because of this, I think less about debt as a financial issue and more as a human condition shaped by trust, and what we owe each other.
As Kodwo Eshun prompted at the opening of ‘The Debtor’s Portal’, to paraphrase “there is a need to rethink ourselves out of individualism and into complex expansive forms of collective readiness and organising ourselves for the future.”
In the Practice of Solidarity
If to owe is also to belong within a network of mutual reliance, then solidarity becomes the practice of sustaining that network. It moves beyond the idea of shared belief and becomes something material; built through action, repetition, and the willingness to remain present. Solidarity is achievable in theory, but much harder to maintain in moments where capacities of labour are already stretched. Care, support, and collective responsibility require time, energy, and emotional endurance, all of which are often unevenly distributed. The absence of showing up is becoming increasingly visible, as conditions are taken for granted and solidarity becomes difficult to sustain without exhausting those who continually try to rally others to participate. We don’t exist solely in statements or intentions, but rather in our persistence through these often unremarkable and labour-intensive periods where support is most needed. It’s in this where I have become more evidently aware of the power in showing up.
Through this exhibition and event series, my understanding of solidarity deepened, leading me to recognise that it is something that must be constructed deliberately. Community is rarely spontaneous; it is formed through acts of care, patience, and accountability. In this way, solidarity becomes a material condition that allows collective presence to sustain.
An appreciation of space
It is within this sense of presence that I leave my gratitude to Cooper Gallery, both as an organisation and as a community. Through the programme’s continued persistence in creating space for new ways of thinking and critical discourse, it has opened my attention to future possibilities in the production of knowledge, dialogue, and collective engagement. To the connections built, the people worked with and the events we can so proudly say we accomplished, I am very thankful to have had this experience.
Watching Bahar Noorizadeh, Free to Choose Free, 2023
Photo by Lewis Cavinue
Rehearsal for live performance, Reuter in Tehran, 11 April 2026
(L-R) Intibint (CDJ and vocals), Lewis Cavinue (Live captions), Bahar Noorizadeh (Director, script writer, visuals and reader)
Photo by Peter Amoore
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Reflection by Lewis Cavinue, working as Event Production Assistant, Cooper Gallery on Weird Economies X Scotland, a series of events co-curated with Noorizadeh running along her exhibition The Debtor's Portal, February - April 2026.
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Lewis Cavinue is a Dundee-based artist, producer and curator
https://lewiscavinue.co.uk/
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