The depleted civic commons — the public spaces, the volunteer associations, the local governance bodies, the platforms-that-were-supposed-to-be-public whose ecological conditions have been mined out. Makemake in Aquarius is the patient restoration of the institutions of "we" at the level of civil society and public-good infrastructure.
Makemake in Aquarius names the long-cycle restoration of the civic commons — the patient rebuilding of the institutions, customs, and infrastructure through which a society at the public-good level can take care of itself. She is the local elected official whose forty-year tenure in a small region's school board quietly re-builds an education system. She is the volunteer fire chief whose decades of unglamorous coordination work hold a county together. She is the public-protocol designer whose patient work makes the next generation's digital civic infrastructure possible. The cost is the relinquishment of any individual-credit register; the gift is civic ground that future generations can stand on.
The depleted civic commons — the public spaces, the volunteer associations, the local governance bodies, the platforms-that-were-supposed-to-be-public whose ecological conditions have been mined out. Makemake in Aquarius is the patient restoration of the institutions of "we" at the level of civil society and public-good infrastructure.
A career of un-glamorous civic work. Makemake in Aquarius is willing to be the volunteer who shows up to the local council meeting for thirty years, the open-source contributor whose decades of small commits keep critical infrastructure alive, the community organiser whose multi-decade work re-builds the conditions under which a place can be self-governing.