"How does a gathering become a 'happening,' that is, greater than a sum of its parts? One answer is contamination. We are contaminated by our encounters; they change who we are as we make way for others.

As contamination changes world-making projects, mutual worlds—and new directions—may emerge.¹ Everyone carries a history of contamination; purity is not an option. One value of keeping precarity in mind is that it makes us remember that changing with circumstances is the stuff of survival."