Restart Podcast Ep. 26: Fixers united at the first Fixfest

On the weekend of 6-8 of October, we hosted the first International Fixfest in London. It was an incredible chance for repairers, makers, activists, tinkerers and academics from all over the world to meet each other, share tips and stories, and come up with joint strategies for repairing into the future.

Video recordings of many of the talks and unconference sessions from Fixfest are available on Youtube. You can also read summaries on the Fixfest site.

This episode features Dave Pickering, our podcast producer, in conversation with repair group organisers from Holland, Italy, Tunisia, Argentina and more. They discuss whether Fixfest can signal a new era of global collaboration for community repair. This podcast episode is a portrait of an emerging repair movement. And it would not be complete without stories about some of our participants’ favourite community repairs. From an old guitar that means a lot to two particular parents, to a cleverly modified paper shredder, it is clear that repair is about much more than just a successful fix. And even if the benefit to individual and community well-being is much harder to quantify than kilos of waste saved from landfill, these event organisers are hugely motivated by the social aspects of repairing together.

Over the coming months, we’ll be featuring more material from Fixfest on our podcast, including an interview with Lewis Dartnell – author or ‘The Knowledge’ – in which we imagine that we have to rebuild all the technologies we’ve come to depend upon from scratch. In another episode, we talk to designer Leyla Acaroglu about her positive vision for systems change, and how we might go about achieving it. Stay tuned!