(Y)our Agency
Jordan Fong
“If to change ourselves is to change our worlds, and the relation is reciprocal, then the project of history making is never a distant one but always right here, on the borders of our sensing, thinking, feeling, moving bodies.” —J.K. Gibson-Graham
Who and what rules our world in 2026? As capitalist greed drives our society, our sense of connection often feels replaced by a gradual stripping away of our collective power. To combat the isolation crisis, we must incentivize critique and reclaim our right to local knowledge and networking.
(Y)our Agency arises as a facilitative network, a tool to cut through the noise and meet basic needs by revealing the supportive networks already surrounding us. This project invites participation, utilizing an interface-driven narrative that flips capitalist marketing methods.
Prompted to survive an extreme winter storm, you navigate two competing systems: 1) The Board of Government, which acts as a mirror, utilizing invasive advertisements to enforce distance and limit our choices to what is most profitable, revealing the patterns that keep us as bystanders rather than active citizens as meeting our needs becomes commodified; and 2) Community Boards, which offer a pathway to cooperate for the common good, allowing you to rejoin a lively network of neighborly requests, offers, and observations through mutual aid, ensuring that the needs of all are met by viewing real-time data and following trails of local knowledge.
We do not have to accept this fate. By choosing interdependence, we imagine a world that is fundamentally connected. The agency is all yours. What will you do with it?