petition. work
Aesthetics / Ethics / and
Socio-political action
The most immediate fact of man's consciousness is the assertion: ”I am life that wills to live in the midst of life that wills to live”.
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“Affirmation of life is a spiritual act by which man ceases to live thoughtlessly and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to give it true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live.
At the same time the man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give to every will to live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own.
This is the absolute, fundamental principle of ethics, and is a fundamental postulate of thought.”Out of My Life and Thought, Albert Schweitzer
About petition.work
Since Seyyal Carnetto and Tomaso Carnetto took over the responsibility for the Communication Design studies at the Academy of Visual Arts, Frankfurt in 2007, the triad of aesthetics, ethics and socio-political action has been a focal point of the study program.
The implementation took place in the main studies with the so-called "practice projects". These projects were carried out in cooperation with partners from various fields, such as the "NGO Network Bangladesh", the "Deutsches Filmmuseum", "Chrismon, das evangelische Magazin", the "Drogenreferat Frankfurt am Main", the "Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge", the "Archive Arolsen", the "Albert-Schweitzer-Begegnungsstätte Niederbronn", the "Suhrkamp Verlag” and others.
In the course of time it became clear that the "practice projects" had taken on such a dimension that they needed an educational framework of their own. So Seyyal and Tomaso decided to set up an independent institution that would not only offer workshops and certificate studies with a focus on ethical education, but would also be able to work as a service provider in the interrelation between culture, politics, social and religious fields.
Finally, an independent institution was founded under the name petition.work, a non-profit company based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
petition.work operates in close cooperation with the Academy of Visual Arts, Frankfurt, but as an independent institution it is also free to cooperate with other institutions, companies, universities and individuals.
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About ethics
We commonly assume that ethics in society is primarily about defining what to do and what not to do, and why, i.e., according to what rules. To clarify this, there are various ethics councils. If we define the relevance of ethics, especially for political decisions and for science, only in terms of what and why, we miss the point.
First of all, ethics is a question of how. How we treat each other with love, respect and care. This is the basis for every decision we have to make in the world of economics, politics, and science. The question of how is very practical; how to do it concretely in daily business, especially in joint negotiations (no matter what they are about). Ethical education is urgently needed for this.
We do this through workshops, master classes, studies and direct individual consulting in companies and institutions.
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