pulley airer

welcome to the monthly matinée, a retrospective of the appleturnover long-form films. next up is pulley airer.

appropriate technology + downshifting, as illustrated by the pulley airer, form another episode from the appleturnover series, the journal of small work. in the film i look at solutions to meeting our needs that embody another way of being in the world.

those who’ve been following my work for years know my penchant for the tried and true, the traditional tool or method, reconnecting to a heritage in the margins of a culture that moved on. tried and true tools that hold the gentle power to transform our future, informing the way we think about what a good life looks like.

this film is in some way my own revelation, to finally begin to understand why it is that working with one’s hands – often using tools with a long lineage of communities making what they need – is so compellingly restorative in an era of profound crisis and transformation.

tools like those featured in the film hold values inherent within them, premised on other visions of being. when we use them, we activate this. it’s an act of living into another future, one linked to a past that might persist in quite another way if we collectively follow a different story of who we are.

the quintessential pulley airer is the starlet of the third episode in this series, which seeks to illustrate a pairing of concepts that could serve us well in facing the challenges of living in this moment.

what i love most fiercely about the principle of appropriate technology and its dear friend, downshifting, is their possibilities as ways of reckoning with the underlying patterns of the dominant culture at the same time as they actually practice a whole other vision of what life could be like.

if this piece gets at the core of why downshifting movements that draw resourcefully on appropriate technology —- like slow food, slow fashion, simple living, intentional living, mindfulness practices, radical homemaking, homesteading, minimalism, zero waste, community reliance or community-sufficiency, reskilling, unschooling, permaculture ethics and regenerative living —-resonate so deeply and so widely, why they feel like a sane response to converging crises, then this little film has done its work.

what appropriate technologies are you already using towards living regeneratively? what are you downshifting these days? let me know in the comments. your small work inspires us all to action.

thanks for watching, sharing and supporting. meet you back here next week ☆彡