PRACTICES Howlround - A Case Study in Cultural Commoning

What the figure makes clear, first and foremost is that the cultural ecology includes the commons as a third aspect alongside the state and the market. It also says that there are relationships between these aspects and the people and networks active within them. They connect, overlap and depend on each other. The three aspects of the creative cultural ecosystem are distinguishable in broad terms, but they are not separable. They are interacting features within a more cohesive whole and it is in the relationships and commonalities that we are able to see the abundance that’s here. The scarcity of resources that are currently being invested to enable the creative cultural ecosystem is a choice not a condition. But it’s a choice made with a limited view. If we change the view then the choices can be different.

Our Cultural Commons set out to change perceptions and to open out possibilities that are informed by noticing and uncovering the potential that is already there. We have sought to dig where we stand, turning over the ground to open up new furrows. As a result we are beginning to articulate, with colleagues involved in an open network which has emerged from this work - the Coalition for the Cultural Commons72 - some of the positive shifts of which cultural commoning is suggestive. Shifts that can encourage a different set of choices when it comes to sustaining our shared cultural life more appropriately:

• From centralised hierarchical governance structures to more distributed ones

• From rigid, transactional relationships to those that are more collaborative and enabling.

• From fragmented and individualised plans to shared purposes and outcomes.

• From a focus on short-term, project-based activity to developing longer-term cultural ‘assets’.

• From homogenous cultural products to shared cultural processes and experiences as distinctive as the people who make them and the places where they are made.

• From passive acceptance of a damaging status quo - ecological, social, economic - to offering constructive, democratic challenge and speaking truth to power

Our Cultural Commons is showing that many creative citizens, organisations, projects and initiatives are already modelling these shifts in diverse contexts. Their actions are potentially transformative and when looked at together are suggestive of a broad movement for change away from our current highly competitive, fragmented and short-term systems. They also encourage cultural leading by people who are capable of thinking and acting both for individual needs and for the common good; people who are capable of building a bridge between a dominant culture in decline to one that is emerging in response to the transformation needed.

The future to which this cultural commoning is pointing is a vibrant democracy in which people have the freedom to participate in and shape the cultural life that is best for them and society. This future requires enabling systems that support people in their making of versions of culture. And it also recognises our responsibilities. As Andreas Weber writes:

“In the ecological commons a multitude of different individuals and diverse species stand in various relationships to one another - competition and cooperation, partnership and predatory hostility, productivity and destruction. All those relations, however, follow one higher principle: Only behaviour that allows for the productivity of the whole ecosystem over the long term and that does not interrupt its capacities of self-production, will survive and expand. The individual is able to realise itself only if the whole can realise itself. Ecological freedom obeys this basic necessity.”

Our cultural freedom is relational. It depends upon and draws from lively interconnection with others, meaningful and deep experiences that bind us together as humans. Our ability to exercise this freedom responsibly will depend on how well we relate to others and how well we create and govern together for the common good. What Our Cultural Commons is beginning to reveal is that we have grounds for hope in the present. Our cultural future will always be shared, and therefore we have everything we need today to build it together.

Notes

WHY CULTURAL COMMONING MATTERS 1. Maureen O’Hara & Graham Leicester, Dancing at the Edge – Competence, Culture and Organisation in the 21st Century (2012) 2. See: https://platform.coop/about 3. See: https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/a-commons-transition-plan-for-the-city-ofghent/2017/09/14#section1 4. See: https://barcelonaencomu.cat/ca 5. See: http://www.bollier.org/blog/bologna-laboratory-urban-commoning 6. See: https://fair-coin.org/

CULTURAL COMMONS AND SOCIAL WELLBEING 7. See: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/minimum-income-standard-uk-2016 8. See: https://www.budgeting.ie/ 9. See: http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/

CULTURAL COMMONING AND CIVIC CONVERSATION 10. Clive James, Cultural Amnesia – Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007), p.4 11. As, for example, in the ‘creative place-making’ movement. See: https://www.voluntaryarts.org/creativeplace-making-in-northern-ireland 12. David Bollier, Commoning as a Transformative Social Paradigm (2015). See: https://thenextsystem.org/ commoning-as-a-transformative-social-paradigm 13. Penguin Dictionary of Sociology 14. One example of the effectiveness of facilitated ‘civic conversation’ about cultural creativity is the story of Creative Place-making in Ballyogan. See: https://www.voluntaryarts.org/exit-15-creative-placemakingin-ballyogan 15. ‘Civic conversation’ – people talking, listening and learning together about things that matter to them as citizens - is the term that has come to be applied to such conversational gatherings. The potential of civic conversation for society is considerable. See, for example, this short piece on civic conversation as an aspect of participative democracy: https://imaginebelfast.com/dealing-with-our-dis-ease/ 16. David Fleming, quoted by Jonathan Porritt (2016); see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5MgkZJkVPk 17. Graham Leicester, Practical Hope and Wise Initiative (2012). See: http://www.internationalfuturesforum. com/u/cms/Practical_Hope_and_Wise_Initiative_AMED_Journal.pdf 18. David Fleming, Surviving the Future (2016), p.3

PARKS AS COMMONS 19. See: http://www.everydayparticipation.org/ . Funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council 20. Abigail Gilmore, The Park and the Commons – Vernacular Spaces for Everyday Participation and Cultural

Value (2017) 21. Peter Linebaugh, Stop, Thief! : The Commons, Enclosures, And Resistance (2014)

22. J. Clifford, Museums as Contact Zones, in J. Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth

Century (1997); K Askins & R Pain, Contact Zones: Participation, Materiality, and the Messiness of

Interaction’ Environment and Planning, in Society and Space (2011) 23. A Smith,‘Borrowing’ Public Space to Stage Major Events: The Greenwich Park Controversy (2014) 24. Heritage Lottery Fund, State of the UK Public Parks II procurement document (2016) 25. A Gilmore & P Doyle, The history of public parks as cultural policies for everyday participation, in L Gibson & E Belfiore (eds), Culture and Power: Histories of participation, values and governance (2018); A Howkins,

The Commons, Enclosure and Radical Histories, in D Feldman & L Hyde, Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership (2012) 26. T Elsborough, A Walk in the Park (2016) 27. H Rees Leahy, Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing (2013)

THE PEOPLE’S PARISH – SINGING OUR OWN SONG 28. Z Ferguson, Kinder Communities: The Power of Everyday Relationships (Carnegie UK Trust, 2016) hypothesises that “everyday relationships and kindness are prerequisites for other types of community activity” and “a broader sense of social capital”. 29. Ibid, p.18 30. The phrase is Steve Byrne’s via Sven Lindqvist: http://digwhereyoustand.blogspot.com/ 31. Georges Henri Rivière, La Muséologie selon Georges Henri Rivière (1989), p.142 32. H Graham, R Mason & A Newman, Literature review: historic environment, sense of place, and social capital (2009) 33. Henry Glassie, Passing the Time in Ballymenone (1982), p.25

CULTURAL COMMONS: WHO PAYS AND WHO BENEFITS? 34. Kevin Murphy and Denis Stewart, Why Cultural Commoning Matters (2017): https://www.voluntaryarts.org/why-cultural-commoning-matters 35. Margaret Bolton and Niamh Goggin, Socially Investing in the Arts, (2016): http://www.buildingchangetrust.org/download/files/SociallyInvestingInArtsFinal%281%29.pdf 36. See: https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2015/jan/12/artists-low-incomeinternational-issues 37. See: https://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/Files/Reports/Industry/The-Working-Musician-report 38. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11550871/Just-one-in-ten-authors-can-earn-fulltime-living-from-writing-report-finds.html 39. See: http://www.creativetrust.ca/about/

‘CULTUREBANKED®’ - OUR DIGITAL COMMONS? 40. See: https://www.culturebankwollongong.org.au/ 41. See: https://detroitsoup.com/ 42. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch 43. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_contract 44. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain 45. See: https://holochain.org/

WHAT DOES CULTURAL DEMOCRACY MEAN? 46. Editors’ note: It is interesting to read this article alongside the King’s College London report, Towards cultural democracy: Promoting cultural capabilities for everyone (2017). The King’s report introduces the concept of ‘cultural capability’ as core to cultural democracy. This capability is seen as extending beyond the freedom to experience publicly-funded arts to “the substantive freedom to co-create versions of culture”. See: https://www.voluntaryarts.org/towards-cultural-democracy

MINDFULNESS AND THE CONTEMPLATIVE COMMONS 47. Andreas Weber, The Biology of Wonder – Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science (2016) 48. See: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/02/1 49. See: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-purser/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289. html?guccounter=1 50. See: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/looking-awry

HOWLROUND - A CASE STORY IN CULTURAL COMMONING 51. D Bollier & S Helfrich (eds), Patterns of Commoning (2015) 52. See: https://www.worldtheatremap.org/en 53. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelda_Fichandler 54. See: https://howlround.com/latinx-theatre-commons 55. See: http://www.bollier.org/blog/silke-helfrich-explains-origins-patterns-commoning

5RIGHTS AND THE POWER OF REAL-LIFE GATHERING 56. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child and: https://www.unicef. org/rightsite/files/uncrcchilldfriendlylanguage.pdf

CARDBOARDIA - FORMING NEW COMMUNITIES 57. Andrew Kim, Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade – Our Big Day (2018): https://www.voluntaryarts.org/hebden-bridge-handmade-parade

GARVAGH PEOPLE’S FOREST – COMMONING PRACTICE 58. Irish Woods Since Tudor Times (1971) 59. See: http://www.clanmcshane.org/TheMacShanes.PDF

HEBDEN BRIDGE HANDMADE PARADE: OUR BIG DAY 60. See: http://handmadeparade.co.uk/ 61. See: http://thingumajig.info/about-us/ 62. See: https://fremontartscouncil.org/ 63. See: https://hobt.org/ 64. Daria Stenina, Cardboardia – Forming New Communities (2017): https://www.voluntaryarts.org/ cardboardia-forming-new-communities