Our Story

The School of Radical Attention was created by the Friends of Attention, an informal coalition of (real) friends that formed in the wake of the 2018 São Paulo Biennial. The common commitment of the Friends is the work of ATTENTION ACTIVISM: that is, the promotion of human flourishing in direct response to the commodification of human attention. For five years, the Friends have written books, made artworks, and brought people together — most notably through the Friends' monthly First Friday gatherings.

The Friends have also convened each year since 2019 for a weeklong, in-person, “Politics of Attention” summer school.

In March of 2022, the Friends launched the Attention Labs, an experiential workshop curriculum designed to reconnect participants to the power of their radical attention. In the program's first year, the Attention Labs received hundreds of participants across the United States, and internationally, in Spain and Brazil.

The Strother School is named after our friend, Matthew Strother (1987-2023), one of the inaugural organizers of the Friends of Attention, and a dearly beloved collaborator in our community. Despite his cancer diagnosis, Matthew bravely persisted in our work for four incredible years, helping draft the Twelve Theses of Attention while undergoing chemotherapy, and helping launch our Attention Lab initiatives while in radiation treatment. We lost him in March of this year, and his inspiration stands over our mission: a better world through better attention – true attention, free attention. 

São Paulo Biennial
2018

Still from Anthesis (2022)
Claudia Claremi & Friends of Attention

Attention Lab at the University of Navarra
May 2023

Politics of Attention IV
August 2022

Matthew Strother at the Kochi Biennial