ARTICULATIONS Extracts from the survey conducted in preparation of Banga on Commons, Utrecht, 8-9 July 2017 Interviewers: Ferdi & Dina (KUNCI) Participants: Alex (Platohedro) Farid (ruangrupa) Gertrude (DOEN Foundation) Jonathan & Ana (Mรกs Arte Mรกs Acciรณn) Lauren (VANSA) Patrick (Waza)
DEFINING COMMONS
In West and East African contexts, for commoning practices I kept thinking of the network there is in Mali, which is based on Maya philosophy: a humanist principle that is you are born as an empty shell; the more you mean towards more people and communities the more maya you gained. This principle is also based on sharing at the same time. But at the same time there is also a hierarchical element within it. In Maya organising there is still this leading figure, which has gained a lot of maya in his life, meaning he gained more trust from community and people. It is kind of bringing together different agendas the whole time. But if he doesn’t function well according to this principle that people would start loosing trust, in that sense this hierarchy is really based on being humanist and having gained trust. I would see it as a kind of commoning practice, at the same time it doesn’t fit to shared ownership and horizontal governance. How to make the practice in Mali less hierarchical? Thats the dilemma in AC, like Marion as she worked on commoning in Senegal, she is also struggling with this hierarchical society and traditional practices are also commoning, but still based on certain hirerachy. Who are we to say that it is not good?
VANSA primary interest in the commons is around the idea of relationality. In South Africa, the Khoisan people have practices which are quite linked to sharing practices in SA today. For example they don’t own anything and everything is shared and mostly because practical reasons, they are nomadic people and the relationships between the people became very important. For example when they were hunting no body owns their own spear, they have to go to somebody to borrow the spear, nobody owns the animal, it’s very much become so much an interaction between people that is symbolic. I guess in comparing this to a more European perspective that it is in our mainstream ideas of the commons, even the language, I am not always comfortable using it and our definition of it is not something that is not strongly conceptualized, and for us it is becoming cheesy because the idea is used in ubuntu.
We mainly understand commons as an environmental issue, in a way that landscape is not only a thing that we observe but also as something that we need to manage, the relation to land and notions of territory in Pacific region, how to create well living based on the idea Pacific. This is how we mainly understand commons.
In Lubumbashi, and the region in general, the economy and social organisation models have been strongly influenced by the mining activities. The question such as work, space, ownership, etc. has been defined as a tool for the expansion of capitalism ideologies, the basic principle for all of them being the paternalism model. So the colonization has brought the idea of having a “Father” to take care of the community: God, the Company, the State, what the historian called the “colonial trinity” (Religion, Politics and Economy). All the attempts to reconfigure the social models, and move away from this trinity were seen as subversive and heavily repressed. But the notion of commons was already experienced in pre-colonial time, in the organisation of economy, and mainly in agricultural technologies: notion such as “Mbile” in the sanga region, or “kikongwani” in lamba region are worth to research and learn from. Some of those technologies are still applied nowadays. Another space of experiencing the commons, are the women association in popular neighborhood, or some women trade cooperatives. These models are named Likelemba in Lingala or Kinkurimba in Swahili. Beyond the mutualisation of their financial resources, they also cover the health care of their family and invest in big projects in their communities.
Two definitions: the commons as shared resources and as initiatives that are working towards the common goods like more commoning approach to organising and to living together. We would like to see in this framing, nature, culture and community coming together(...)While our goal is not explicit, we tend to look for alternative forms to market oriented approach or individualized society that we are living in, in Netherlands at least.
We define commons based on the philosophy of el buen vivir y el buen conocer - Good living and good knowledge. We apply it/we constantly try to apply it in our organization holistically in all of our programs and actions.
The idea of being in a more professional scene and keep in mind that artists are “ordinary citizens” that have a role to play in their society. The lifeline of Waza is built on the notion of work, conceptualized as “kazi” by historians and anthropologist and the notion of collaboration, interdependency and interactivity insipired by web2.0. The main operating principle of Waza art centre is then led by the idea of a KAZI 2.0 that put together the history of our region, our organization history, our commitment to see art as our profession, our role in our society to bring imagination in the way the world is structured and thought. The Banga meeting organized in March 2015 played a crucial role in redefining this approach (…)I think kazi 2.0 is not really a definition of commons, but it is our translation in our context of the need to create a space for sharing resources, knowledge and developing our criticality in our practices in our commitment to our society.
COMMONING INSTITUTIONS
The aim of our cultural program is the development in cultural sectors in specific context, to find commoning approaches or collaborative approaches. It becomes important because we see that the old system is not functioning, a lot or organisations are falling down like the old NGO system or postcolonial approach is creating more divides that is not healthy in a longer term.
In Platohedro, commons are practiced by sharing knowledge and digital tools: collective decision-making, open tools, organizing youth for action, collaboratory management, learning to listen and collective strategies. Commons is a way of working inside-outside, it is our way of entering a space with strategies. This is done by organizing project in collective public space, open park. Manga Libre. It’s open space in front of Platohedro for meeting and communicating with neighbors, parents of matinee children, hacker groups as well as proposing activities.
In terms of projects, we try to critically reflect the relations of the human with nature, the anthropocene.
In Ruru, our understanding of commons is analogous to AC. What are we sharing actually? Concretely we are sharing space, money, resource, infrastructure, time, tools, people, we did this for a while now, like Nuning writing for Ruru. This crossings exists not unintentional, we actually push towards it By working together these organizations can respond better to increasing it as a pooled resources (lumbung) the challenges: money, people etc. If we design web will become stronger, and it is more visible. The last year has been like a steroid for collective works, there were many challenges and we are forced to come out with activities like Pasar Tumpah Ruah, the RRCfest in Gudang etc. These are made possible since we lived together, we are conditioned to share everything.
Two currents emerge in AC, one is that they want to get the practical out of the way, and the other is the one that sense it as a new beauracracy. What interests me is the idea of hacking, the idea is how to think more radically on how we want to use each other? And go beyond our comfort zones and be more radical in this interdependency, and if not one can always withdraw.
What has been connecting us so far is a shared history of funding, and to some extent is a kind of social practice which has different scopes, and this is still a consequence of having a shared funding. Although there were already so many opportunities to share aesthetics in the global art. It is not as difficult anymore for us in Indonesia to go to Kyrgyztan, and give talk about performance and animation. It wasn’t as difficult as before. There is already this easier access to mobility, shared language, social practices, the movement of ideas and people have already been formed, it is not difficult to share values now.
To practice commons in AC, having tools like resource map, common pot, lifeline triangles, meetings that we can share knowledge and strategies, the way that I can see communing practice happen. We still need more mechanism to understand how to practice it between each other. The idea of having a resource map, or a common pot is to think in their art practice as individual but together.(...) My strategy kind of fits with the other organizations, we need to collaborate more since we found more powerful moments there.
More powerful project implies more money, sometimes also other resources of course, like people. So the notion of degrowing within AC, how does it work if we also desire to more, a bigger common pot, as this allows us to have more meetings, create more collaborative project, more experimental tooling projects, more institutional residencies where we can learn from each other even more.
The strength of AC is this artistic intervention, and we can share so many things. More things will flourish, not only the money, although it is essential, like speaking of fundraising for a certain event, working on the publication, etc, everyone can propose to help.
COMMONING AC
Unfortunately with collaborative projects it is still oriented to ourselves not the public. We need to translate our aesthetics, models of working etc directly to public. So far we are too preoccupied with ourselves (...) the format does not have to be exhibition, symposium, conferences, since these are normative constructions, if we want a new model, the product should be new, like going to art summit, or going to Bergen assembly. AC Assembly is also new, different with Jonas Staal’s model. How do we articulate once we catch the animal, what kind of animal is it? Such as what kind of format that could connect Raw Academy, Platohedro, C3P, Lugar adudas, Ashkal aswan, Kunci, Casco, Doen, we have so many different interests, how to combine them?
Practicing commons in AC is related to the definition AC common wealth. I talks to things like common pot and resource map, we are talking about money or finance still. I remember in Assembly we were supposed to talk about common pot or admin, but we basically just talk about money, so if we think about AC commons is about sharing resources that aren’t tangible, sharing knowledge and ways of working and alternative systems. I don’t know how we practice it in AC really (…)I think people practice it in different ways and some more inherent than others, like if you look at Casco it is very much what they do now.
We should always recognize that this journey is only possible because one or two very passionate outspoken people within one organization, and that’s Doen. Or else we won’t be here talking today.(…)And I don’t think we recognize this enough. Because they have to convince the boss in Doen, there has been a lot of discussion in the formation of AC about what it is and obviously there has been a radical shift, it’s been a journey for Doen which also echoes the zeitgeist about participatory funding which is something that has evolved over the last 10 years.
Practice of commoning within AC: time to put it into practice(…)In Ruru, this is an ecosystem that we have been trying develop: it covers economic system, ethical system, financial system, working model, a new culture of collectivity, it must be translated into a product of AC(…)In AC this exists as ethical principles, but it must be translated concretely, since ethical principles are abstract, vision. So what is the mission?
We think it is still under construction. AC has open principles, now it's about how to put them in practice in our micropolitics within our organizations and also within the network.
The struggle in definition of the commons, between the state, the market and the commons, in the current situation the market eating the commons, but the state is supporting the market. Doen is working to make the commons bigger, and make a more balance situation for both market and commons and the state supporting both. But I think it’s not radical enough. In terms of difficulty, the mentality shift needs to still take place, as neoliberalism is so pervasive even in community works. Another difficulty, these things could work very well if the scale is not too big, when they grow then tragedy of commons happen. When it grows it starts to eat itself. How can you create broader impact by uniting these smaller initiatives or the mental shifts in the small initiatives. This thing of making these initiatives bigger is still strong in our new economy program but it is changing, that is hopeful. AC is a good example to look at in that sense, still it is limited: how can that relate to others to have impact because it is growing too fast it will be killed as well.
As an ecosystem, there should be a sharing culture. (...) To us, if Ruru AC should be an artist practice with a more public face, and it will be open for more things, from attending the different interests to resolving the tensions to many trajectories. (...) Perhaps it is united by a sharedinitiative, and it must be shared to public, because if it is not like that we become culture and arts bureaucrats. This way the affinity can be translated to concrete output. To channel this to those outside our circle, we make programs, a program that we can work on together. That’s the ultimate ideal. So we do fundraising together, grow together, study together work together. If we ever achieve this, hopefully there will be new aesthetics as well.
STRUGGLES
Our challenges in addressing the commons is in conceptualizing it, in talking about commons, something may break if you talking about it too much instead of practicing it. We have a feeling that we’ve been practicing it like inherently in our lives and your practices and work in general, so what happens when we start talking about it? You know when you start to overconceptualize things and how they loose the essence.
One challenge is to define/question the implicit understanding of hierarchy carried by our paternalistic culture. Another is to deal with the lack of basic resources that create a tension in many art practitioners. Important to also note the difficulty to plan and to project ourselves in a context were everything seems ephemeral and fragile: security, lives, health, political context, even the State itself.
There are many challenges ahead in the use of the different tools: for communication, to understand the various dynamics, and for decisionmaking process. We also need tools for developing collaborative projects and the sharing of knowledge.
Resource map is still problematic. It is very exaustive data base system, it is still quantitative oriented. The system that was developed now is very detailed and quantitative. Another proposal is to make it more subjective, so if Ferdi is interested in video art scene in Cali, Sally would make a research and put it in the resource map, so it is more subjective but also collective.
BLINDSPOTS
It needs to be clear what we see as resources I think, anything that’s a common need to be accessible to everybody and not overexploited. I don’t know how you do that, I don’t know connect those two things.
The discussion on what Resource map is for was a bit lost, the whole discussion in AC kind of loosing this. No talking of the principles in the working group, why are we doing this, it jumps to the practical right away. This causes confusion. For resource map for instance, are we doing this to see how our lifeline grows, are we doing this so that we can connect more to each other? Or are we doing it to give insight to people in our ecosystem, or are we showing off to funders? It was not clear.
Sometimes I get confused of the idea of commoning AC, and sometimes I think we want to create more resources, more common pot, to do more projects, to have strong relations. But sometimes I think I don’t know how to put in the idea of how to create a common wealth between us we are thinking of the idea of degrowing.
If we want to create stronger relation, we need to be supported by money and time but then on the other hand you have degrowth.
It is very hard to me to define wealth in non-capitalist terms, maybe because of my mining background. But this is exactly why we are there to learn from you guys.
Common wealth is our shared ethics, energy, time, opinions and tangible as well as intangible resources.
We have 25 organizations with what someone called a high profile “cultural capital�. Maybe that is a commonwealth to put together to see the future as a collective construction.
COMMON WEALTH But we really need to work on then common wealth beyond common pots. If we take common pot so specifically as finances we will risk of our ideal of commonwealth. The common wealth to me would be the starting point for sustainability, to analyse better what wealth do we have in common, how through common wealth our relation is becoming more interdependent.
Learning by doing is also another potential strategy. Rather than defining what common wealth is since the outset, better if we begin to act together, and from that experience we can learn: of these are our shared practices. It is critical making, doing and thinking while doing such as when we make an event.
Commonwealth, I felt very much we went backwards in the last Assembly. Sustainability actually is too much seen in financial terms. To me common wealth is, everything we have together our knowledge, materials, arts, friendship, and I think the whole the dicussion about funraising targets and collective pot, actually I always considered collective pot as like the practical working of our common wealth but in practice it is purely defined as our collective finances in the assembly.
To me I hope the second day of this Banga shifts to more practical ways, what we need to now, who we start talking to now, because I think we are really good in talking and not always very in good in acting, or delivering.
From what I understand while the grant was created to support 25 associations, financially, its legacy is in the lasting relationships and affinities between very different and diverse organisations from the global south.
If we talk about sustainability it’s about things in life that sustain,the oldest living life force in the planet, like a moss (...)genetically change very little in the last 4 billion years, it’s one of the earlier life force, but if we keep reinventing ourselves every assembly, there has to be a continuity that’s what I’m saying, in terms of what we are doing in order to be strong, and then in order to go out and look for a variety of other ways of funding
AC Sustainability strategy, I don’t know about the idealism of AC in the future after 2020. But somebody said something during Assembly, I came to realize that all these organizations are thrown together because of money (…)I imagine, in the future maybe, a lot of great connections have been made, and system of working has been made, and I think it will continue regardless of money in a way. I guess organizations that have established good relationships will always be there then, I don’t know if imagining sustainability is necessary or not, sometimes you need to put something away when it is still good. Sometimes relationship is better when you end them before it goes bad. Or to leave a job before you hate it.
I don’t know if that’s too cynical when thinking of AC, but I do notice that the more I get to understand the structures of AC like last Assembly was quite a struggle. So I can’t really imagine how AC sustainability would look like except for finding common ways of working together continuously despite whatever happens.
Building institutions and collective practice in different contexts, such as in a context where there is no institution in place. We need to deepen this discussion. For once there was a very positivist view on buying space in AC for instance, i am more skeptical anyway. Discussing this kind of thing would be really super valuable(…) Also if we are thinking of sustainability by starting from our common wealth, it is more about what is the meaning of this wealth. I am wondering how you look at the organization position to that wealth, how important is the sustainability of the organization in relation to that wealth? Maybe it can dissolve and then maybe the wealth can be continued in another way? Sustainability is very much still seen that THE organization has to continue, it should be maybe much more our network continues, our circulation of thought that continue. Maybe it is good to include about this idea in thinking sustainability, what is your ultimate aim and does it involve dissolving?
For sustainability strategies, we need to strategize from now until 2010 in order to fundraise for itself while Fundraising WG works on a strategy to support the common pot as a network post 2020. This would entail AC organization funding for itself while annually refilling and sustaining the common pot. We could use the resource map to communicate with the members of AC that are skilled in funding or at least have experience in it and drafting guidelines.
Maybe we should revisit the importance of collective pot, can we see it not in a narrow financial way(...) To detach from the idea that lifelines mean 5 years of not having to think about money, which should be the opposite, and common pot is 21.000, the majority now thinks that way, which kinda repeat dependency to me.
I think we need to have the panorama of the future for each organization have for AC life as well beyond it. How are we going to pass the knowledge are creating here for the organizations, as well as new members. Funding also can also learn from us all this methodology and ways to work with philanthropy, we need to push this kind of knowledge.
We need to find ways to understand ethical principles and more practical things. I remember the idea ruru talking about the next generation. Some organizations are thinking very radically on these things.(…)What needs to be addressed also, all the organizations need to rethink how the future would look like for each organization. Some I know are built on day to day survival, we can live in 10 years more? (...) Because collectives can be in a different moment and must be allowed to think about the possibility to die also, especially if we consider the more risks that they are facing than more established institutions.
SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES
I think the strategy that AC needs to, Michelle sums it up quite nicely talking is about openess in the ethical principle but we don’t practice it and I think to become sustainable we need to be more open.
A lot work needs to be done before we can get get to a point where we understand what sustainability means, does it mean that keeping the 25 organizations alive and funded, is it time related? Do we want to be more inclusive and involved more organization in the network? This raises a lot of questions. (...)Thinking of sustainability in financial terms we need to be working now to find strategy. First to be clear about what we are, and what we can offer, and the kinds of organizations that we want to include in this partnership. And I think it is going to be tricky finding partners similar to Doen who haven’t participated in this journey.