Living the Commons Rhythm: The Arts Collaboratory Handbook of Good-Living This handbook contains stories articulated and collected through Arts Collaboratory’s Banga meeting on Commons (8-9 July 2017) held at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons. This Banga edition was held in conjuction with AC members participation at the Practitioner’s Lab, a part of Practicing the Commons: Self-Governance, Cooperation, and Institutional Change - the XVI Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), Utrecht, The Netherlands, 10-14 July 2017. This publication include stories written by Binna Choi, & Yolande van der Heide from Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons (Utrecht), Jonathan Collins from Más Arte Más Acción (Choco), Alexander Correa from Platohedro (Medellin), Gertrude Flentge from Doen Foundation (Amsterdam), Lauren von Gogh from VANSA (Johannesburg), Marion Louisgrand Sylla from Kër Thiossane (Dakar), Farid Rakun from ruangrupa (Jakarta), Ferdiansyah Thajib & Syafiatudina from KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Yogyakarta) and a guest contribution written by Georgia Nicolau from Intituto Procomum (São Paulo) as well as illustrations made by Dominique Ratton Perez from Teoretica (San José).
There were multiple aspects of commons being discussed during the two-day meetings that preceded the Practitioner’s Lab. How different people understand and practice commons differently, the various contexts in which local practices of commons intersect with global notions, and how these various practices connect with the ideas of collective organising and institutional sustainability within the context of AC itself. The stories gathered in this publication are part of the tools employed during the deep study sessions in Utrecht. As a closing exercise at the end of day one, each individual participants were asked to daydream, to conjure up particular scenario. They could pick any starting point: from the most banal anecdotes of everyday situations to the most grandiose ideas of collective organizing. We also asked the contributors to imagine about their potential listeners as they created the stories: which part of you and your life do you wish to share with others? As the rest of the publication will show, each of the stories follows its own singular pathway as they collectively fold in and out of each other. Some of the individual narratives may sometimes meet or intersect, but none of them arrived to a unified meaning. The semi-fictional character of these stories cannot be overstated. Indeed, as Ursula K. Le Guin explains in her carrier bag theory of fiction, storytelling is about collecting things up into a net, a bag, a recipient, or a hollow, for sharing. We hope that the sharing of these everyday reveries, deep reflections and playful speculation functions more than being a source of documentation of the dynamics that took place during the Banga. As an experimental tooling, the compilation of materials serves the basis for radical imaginations on sharing knowledge and common dreams, expanding collaboration and building solidarity across practices and struggles.
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AC, Utopiasismo Viral Alexander Correa - Platohedro
2025, dos amigas se fuman un cigarrillo y toman un café, están hablando sobre un artículo que salió en una revista que está cubriendo la Asamblea de AC. Yo las escucho como sin querer mirar. Muchas de las conversaciones y discusiones en bienales de arte, eventos académicos, festivales sobre arte, economía y ciencias al igual que en algún café en un rincón del mundo, pueden ser sobre AC; ”Identificado”, o explicado por algunas, o en el intento de entender, muchos narran que ya no es una red de trabajo, Network, se ha transformado en una mixtura de muchas cosas que obedecen a la gran urgencia de la humanidad. Las organizaciones que hacen parte de AC la sienten y viven más allá de una red, se visualiza como una articulación a nivel mundial que involucra arte, economía, cooperativismo, poder y potencial, micropolíticas, la reinvención de palabras, de productos y de acontecimientos. Existe una relación de cooperativismo entre las organizaciones de AC y su contexto local, hay un reconocimiento a nivel mundial de ser una plataforma al igual que el open software por liberar las metodologías, para ser usadas, transformadas y de nuevo liberadas, además de las 4 libertades tiene la quinta, el libre pensamiento.
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Se ha empezado a distinguir un lenguaje propio de la red, más allá del territorio y postcolonialismo, la mixtura de muchos idiomas, palabras nuevas que ayudan a reinventar el mundo, un mundo que nos obliga cada vez más a reaccionar, un mundo sumergido en el caos y conflictos armados. Ya lo dijo Villepin “No he conseguido hacerme… entender” pero todas le replicaron “No, no, te hemos entendido perfectamente, sabemos lo que quieres decir cuando usas esas palabras”. El lenguaje como relación de fuerzas, invitando a abrirse al agenciamiento de las palabras, el movimiento en el que se insinúan y en el contexto en el que surgen. Las palabras como consignas, intervienen en la realidad (es)y la transforma, es una multiplicidad de fuerzas que construyen una lengua. AC se percibe como una propuesta de vanguardia que aporta a posibles transformaciones de la relación de las personas y la sociedad con su entorno cercano y conectado al buen vivir construyendo otros escenarios, diferentes al del Capitalismo Aliens. Las escuelas de AC, posiblemente 3, están siendo observadas por la academia formal y por los grupos de investigación, colectivos e individuos, muchas, aunque aún no lo dicen, quieren ser socias de AC, sin embargo, para este tiempo las universidades, en los undercommons, en la clandestinidad, están ligadas ya a AC, hackeadas y usadas como una herramienta más. El concepto de red se va transformando, se habla de una comunidad donde hacer, pensar y aportar de acuerdo a las (líneas, principios, bases)??? de AC,
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te hacen parte de la red, sin embargo el accionar de AC está integrado por 15 organizaciones a nivel mundial, se tienen equipos de coordinación por regiones, conectadas a su ecolocalsistema y cada 6 años se hace cambio de mínimo 3 organizaciones. Más del 35% de los movimientos financieros se hacen por moneda virtual, bitcoins y similares y con una tendencia a aumentar el porcentaje y un objetivo claro de usar otras alternativas similares que sean opuestas a las lógicas de los grandes bancos que habitan en cada contexto, transformando las lógicas del mercado local y conectadas a nivel global con una gran tienda virtual de los productos (publicaciones, obras, manufacturas locales y de comercio justo, etc..) y servicios que presta AC como plataforma de intercambio. Se tiene los encuentros de intercambios y proyectos conjuntos tanto regionales como entre regiones, pero en pequeños grupos, los triángulos, y pequeños encuentros y proyectos por equipos de trabajo, de Banga, a nivel de Asamblea General, se pasa a realizar cada dos años, convirtiéndose esta en un gran evento a nivel mundial abierto y libre que reúne una mezcla entre reuniones, bienales, festivales, simposios y otros formatos.
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‘Story’
Gertrude Flentge – DOEN Foundation
Below is not a story, but a rather practical way of how I can see AC commoning and circular pot functioning in a practical way in a few years from now. Functioning according to Radical Imagination, Fun, Openness, Lifeline-thinking, in spirit of commoning, self limitation etc. etc. AC Common Pot, Common wealth and ecosystem merge into the CCP, not the Central Communist Party, but the Circular Commoning Pot! This pot collects all our contacts, knowledge, resources, facilities and money. This wealth of knowledge, money, resources, facilities and care, flow in and out to AC members and others in the wider ecosystem. Every member brings in money, knowledge, facilities, resources and care according to their (most generous) possibilities. People that receive resources and care from the pot become part of the ecosystem and movement by bringing back tools, becoming part of the CCP’s mechanism and becoming part of a movement. The commoning practice that is experienced by all through this CCP creates a growing movement of a radically different way of living, relating and organising, building on locally embedded practices and contextualised principles of sharing and generosity, and with at its bases people’s desires and imagination.
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What used to be AC Assembly develops into the Arts Collaboratory Mabuntu meeting. This meeting is an ongoing process in which initiatives in holistic ‘commoning’, informal and culture based economies and related traditional practices get together to develop a how to, storytelling and a movement, to help in creating a system’s change on a larger scale. The heart of the meeting is Imagination, a collection of stories, artworks and processes that show ideas, imaginations and stories on people’s desires and realities in relation to their social and natural environment. The first of these meetings is built on the experience of many AC Banga’s and other studies outside AC and held in 2020 in Gudang Sarinah, Jakarta. This marks the end of the AC ecosystem in its limited 20162020 form and dissolves in a less formally organised and more organic, larger and open ecosystem. How does it work practically? The potential of circularity in this system, and of building a movement, needs to be studied much further. Some questions to be researched further: ● How can natural resources become part of this
circular Pot?
● How can all knowledge and resources stay in this
cycle or benefit other cycles instead of ending up in lineair processes? ● How can this remain at a certain scale and grow in a movement at the same time? But in my limited imagination of now I imagine some people/organisations giving and benefiting in the following way:
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1. What do we bring: For example: Ruangrupa brings in:
Money: in 2017 → 5.000, 2018 → 15.000, 2019 → 50.000, A space (Gudang Sarinah), Academy, Production capacity, Radical imagination.
Platohedro brings in:
Money: in 2017 → 3.500, 2018 → 10.000, 2019 → 15.000, Tools on communing, facilitation and organising, ICT tools and expertise, Radical imagination.
DOEN brings in:
Money: yearly 250.000, knowledge on commons organisations and regenerative economy, network of artists and art experts, new economy experts, social firms.
Kër Thiossane brings in:
Money: in 2019 → 70.000 (fundraising through the R.S. Fairgood Foundation), Expertise in digital practice + fablab, Gardening + aquaponics, A new model of commoning in public space, network of experts in communing throughout Africa. With these 4 members alone in 2019 we have a commoning circular Pot of 385.000 (+ savings previous years) + above knowledge and network. 2. How do we use it we use the Commoning circular Pot to regenerate our ecosystems. People can bring proposals:
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In 2019, 3 are selected:
1. Instant noodles collective from Flores (Indonesia), for a project on researching traditional hangout practice in yards of people as a practice to build social cohesion and knowledge on environment. They get: 10.000 euro, Platohedro tools of buen vivir practice, ruru brings in knowledge on circular exhibition making and mentoring. DOEN arranges an exchange visit with a similar practice in Uganda.
The Instant Noodles collective gives back to the Commoning Circular Pot their knowledge on Hanging Out practice which helps the AC-Mabuntu 2020 meeting to become a healthy and fun meeting. Also through Platohedro some families in Flores are connected to families that work with MAMA in Choco, they exchange stories and experiences on deforestation and the effect on their communities. 2. Fabsta! – the regeneration and dissolvement of Ker Thiossane knowledge and activities in a network of artistic neighbourhood based initiatives and fablabs throughout Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso and the publishing of a book and tools that bring more practice based modalities towards the concept of Afrotopia. EUR 100.000 is needed for this transitioning: this is shared as follows: � A network of non-commercial Fablabs throughout the 3 countries and a mobile fablab unit. � A meeting of culture based neighbourhood initiatives, university professors and local government officials that work on communing based practices and the reinforcement of informal economic structures.
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● Parlons Attaya, A publication of Ker Thiossane in collabora-
tion with Raw Material and the Ateliers de la Pensée in which the practice based model of Ker Thiossane, the cultural study that has been taking place at Raw Material between 20162020 and the scientific Afroopia study at the Atelier de la Pensée are brought together in one book that talks about the widely discussed ‘African Renaissance’, but for the first time brings together economy, philosophy and ecology based science, cultural study and cultural and commoning practice.
The book becomes an important inspiration to the AC Mabunto meeting and is sold worldwide. It is giving face and momentum to not only the African Renaissance but also the Mabunty-AC movement. 3. The lekker eten zonder te betalen (eat well without payment) new economy initiative in the NL: and initiative that builds a local circular economy model around free food production and eating for all. They get EUR 5000, participation of an Indonesian and Colombian artist that help in storytelling about their new economic model. The women from Sicap neighbourhood in Dakar teach them about the innovations they made in their aquaponics gardening and bring in some traditional circular practice from Senegal. The lekker eten zonder te betalen collective connects The Indonesians, Colombians and Senegalese friends to the global ‘’regenerative economy’ movement they are part of. The above book Parlons Attaya brings a shift in thinking in this movement that up till then was stuck in America and Europe based paradigms and realities and therefore lacked connection to people’s cultures and desires and their informal relations. The book brings thoughts and modalities that are more human and holistic.
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Other practicalities:
- Each project that receives money from the CCP also gets a caring person/organisation that discusses needs and necessities, and makes connections across the ecosystem.
- Decisions are made through consensus by a selection of 3 core members of the AC ecosystem. Each year this committee rotates: 3 new members + always two new organisations that have received the money in the former year.
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[Untitled]
Binna Choi – Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons We are an “unnatural network” of art organizations, mostly based on the geo-political concept “global south”, gathered in 2013 by DOEN foundation and Hivos as the funders for each organization that in 2015 got determined to be a self-governing eco-system. This eco-system includes DOEN foundation who is committed to bring most 2 million euros each year for the eco-system for 2016-2018 and possibly for 2019-2020. We each produce and present diverse types of art from traditional painting and sculptures to no media specific conceptual and post-conceptual arts (social art, political art, relational arts, artistic research and so on) yet there is a common ground that we see art as an important way of dealing with social and political realities that threatens or obstruct our “well beings” or “buen vivir” of many, either as a means for learning, critical investigation, connecting or for temporary autonomous zone of well being or buen vivir. And all of us, “community” is an important notion as both intimate and distant others where we are also implicated in. An irony is that in producing, supporting or presenting these arts, we have a tendency to threaten or obstruct those “well being” or “buen vivir” of ourselves who are working on these: precarity in terms of financial resource necessary for our activities, increasing amount of work and labor, dysfunctional system of hierarchical organization (board, director, curator and so on). We are re-producing a similar situation that we are critical of. In this circumstance, we organizers are also getting unsure how much effective or affective our means – art – work. So we are starting to question how we organizers change this, that dose good for us and for broader us – each own local eco-system and the eco-system of those eco-systems. In other words, we started seeing ourselves –our “arts”, knowledge, our skills, our relations, our infrastructures and facilities, our “money” but importantly, also our environments and inspiring historical- x context – as the commons: a common
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resource that we collectively manage in order for enriching our lives and keep “artistic practice” serving for that purpose. In doing so, we got a working system consisting of • our way of planning LIFELINES • our annual 10 day meeting for decision making and knowledge sharing ASSEMBLY • sporadic study group meeting BANGA • our internal newsletter TAMTAM • and we start working more and more COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS and so on, such as Territory project, art school-laboratory, falling into the periphery … ○ Agenda: border, government, money
and world is changing: cooperative But • • •
when it comes to administration fundraising locating our resources and facilitating their sharing, and further sharing outside of our eco-systems (website, resource, and tooling) Furthermore as much as it’s fun, working on our ecosystem is also getting labor intensive: sometimes generates frustration and internal communication problems – is this part of life or does it take away our life?
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Afropixel 6 May 1st / May 10th 2018 AC pixel ? about Non-Aligned Utopias (Utopies Non Alignees) Marion Louisgrand Sylla - Kër Thiossane
Kër Thiossane will organise next April / May 2018, the 6th edition of Afropixel festival in the marge of the Dakar Biennal. This next edition will be about « Non Aligned Utopias », a topic chose in conversation with Oulimata Gueye a senegalese - french curator based in Paris.
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“Has the future become an obsolete notion in Europe? The repeating crises of financial capitalism, the threat of climate change with irreversible ravaging effect on earth, the conflicts growth and their resulting massive population movement, the growing gap between the richest and the poorest, all nourish the idea that « what’s to come » may not be that desirable. Faced to the huge gap that is part of the daily life on the continent, voices are raising to defend the idea that if Africa wants to elaborate profitable futures, it has to go through a profound cultural revolution.It is the point of focus of different remarkable initiatives, carried on one for example by the Senegalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr, and on the other by cultural structures or labs like WɔεLab in Togo or The School of Commons of Ker Thiossane in Dakar. Felwine Sarr’s approach, notably developed in his lastest work, Afrotopia, claims itself as an « living utopia » and might very well become the ground base of an intellectual and artistic movement. In order to think Africa’s future it is necessary to position itself in a non-aligned and plural perspective, to think with the capacities of autochthon anticipation and against the remanence of colonialism, supported by globalization and its economical model leader: ultra-liberalism.” - Oulimata Gueye
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This thematic it is very related to AC ecosystem and members. All our spaces and initiatives can be considered like non aligned utopias. This edition could be a great opportunity to invite AC members who are interested in it to join the festival by specific contributions to the festival (web TV, fanzine…) or by a small format of exhibition, in the way we had at Ruangrupa for the assembly in 2016. Add to this, Kër Thiossane is also partner of an exhibition project « Imaginary Worlds : Africa and the Digital » with Wits Art Museum (WAM) and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) in Johannesburg, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe and the Universität Bayreuth. (see below) The first exhibition and performance event - Chapter 1 - will take place in Dakar. There the works will be shown as part of and in conversation with the 6th edition of the Afropixel festival. The second exhibition and performance event at Wits Art Museum is scheduled for July 2018. The last scheduled show and performance event will take place in October 2018 at the ZKM. For chapter 1 in Dakar, we should receive the support from DFG funded Point Sud Programme, in Germany, for a workshop with 25 people in Dakar for 5 days. Artists, scientists, partners of the projects and also guests will take part to this workshop in order to exchange about Imaginary World, Africa, the Digital and non aligned utopias. The format is not really defined yet. It would be interesting to use this workshop as a moment for sharing Arts Collaboratory convictions, ethics, methods…
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Related to : OPENNESS - DISEMINATION - RADICAL IMAGINATION CO-LEARNING - SHARING STORY / SHARING KNOWLEDGE Imaginary Worlds: Africa and the Digital Imaginaries do not reside in dreamworlds alone but take part in the ongoing processes that bring the worlds we inhabit into being. Carried by and partially realised—made real—in practices, dreams, technologies, social orderings and infrastructurings, imaginaries inform an unstable field where concepts, values, aesthetics, legitimacies, desires, memories and powers are negotiated. Not attributable to any single author, imaginaries are born, shift and die with the collectives that carry them. Digital technologies dramatically change our practices, our collective imaginaries and the speed and reach of their circulation. Thinking of Africa and the digital as partially connected worlds entangled in an autopoetic process rather than singular and separate entities, this research and exhibition project explores how digital practices and imaginaries shift what Africa is and can be. The resulting works of this project will be shown in Dakar, Johannesburg and Karlsruhe and in an accompanying print and online catalogue that will form an important way of tracing the works as they travel between the different sites.
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[Untitled]
Farid Rakun - ruangrupa I have two stories to tell:
One, is how we have used RURUcorps (RRC), our commercial wing (registered as a company) whose mandate is to look for profit for the non-profits it was formed by (ruangrupa, Serrum Studio, and Forum Lenteng), to act as two things: 1. A hub to which every group put their programs in, so RRC can sell it as a packaged product to the outside world. Sponsors, audience, general public, etc. This is not unlike subprime mortgage trade in high-finance world. One by one, programs have the tendency to be a niche product, but together, they expand each other’s reach and access to audience and wealth out there.
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2. An artistic buffer, because as RRC is the one sponsors or funders are in touch with, each of the program virtually gain their independence for content, not having to deal directly with money givers that most of the time try to steer programs to fit their own agenda (naturally). RRC might serve as an (imperfect) model for our FUNraising working group.
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Second story I told was using the iceberg model. Learning from ruangrupa’s “Decompression #10” (our 10-year anniversary in 2010), where we did ruru.zip (archive of our own shit) + ruru. net (showcasing our networks so far). None of AC is actually above the water surface right now… Everything is under the surface. Instead of building something new on top of whatever is under the surface now, I propose to drain the sea… and show the nitty-gritty process we are doing, sharing it to the public, and hopefully collect feedbacks this way. Open the kitchen, or what I called it then, “REVEAL”—like in magic. The kitchen is the work, not unlike Gordon Matta-Clark’s FOOD restaurant, maybe (from other people’s reading of it at least). We did it to a certain extent through the Commons Conference in our Practitioner’s Lab session. Maybe we can evaluate and share this kind of activities further. Thank you.
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Pacific school: The world needs a paradigm shift
Jonathan Collins, Más Arte Más Acción Key • • • • • • • • •
Words: BUEN VIVIR OTHER ANIMALS/ PLANTS SHARED RESPONSIBILITY CO-LEARNING COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIP SHARING STORY ECOSYSTEM (IN EACH ORGANIZATION / AND AC) BASED CARE TIME STRIKE AND REFLECTION
Shared Study: Put our struggles in a global context. Violence and the changing world order Last week’s provocative inter-continental ballistic missile, with a potential nuclear capacity, by North Korea turned local regional tensions into a global crisis. Trump warns of “very serious reprisals” The world appears more chaotic and dangerous. The paradigm has shifted, The USA is weaker, Russia and China’s power are rising. New forces are stepping into the vacuum. Peace in Colombia? Government signs a peace deal with FARC and they disband. President Santos wins a Nobel Peace Prize. A public referendum in 2016 overturns the peace agreement. The country is divided. Contracts are signed with Norwegian oil firms to access “safer” Colombian lands to extract dwindling supplies. In Chocó, FARC’s vacuum is filled by paramilitaries taking over the drug trade. Paramilitaries occupy the Chocó Base when we’re away.
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Everyone is silenced, our neighbour Javier asks for (government) help and is killed a week before the AC Assembly. Lonely Planet lists Colombia as the world’s no 2 MUST VISIT hotspot 2017. “Fast forward to the present day, and the lost years seem but a dust speck in Colombia’s rear-view mirror.” Imagine regulating the drug business. Illegality leads to death or imprisonment of our neighbours. It’s complex and legality won’t necessarily eliminate the problem. It’s global. It’s in all our ecosystems. Drugs and violence are also commons. Through Radical Imagination, study, communication and common voices, alternative scenarios can be built. The world needs a paradigm shift. Pacific region vis- à -vis the civilizational transtition “Humanity is facing an unprecedented crisis of which climate change, the destruction of species, and the intensification of social inequality are only the most acute manifestations. For many observers in many parts of the world (indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant collectivities; some scientists, intellectuals, and spiritual teachers; and transition activists), we are clearly facing a civilizational crisis. What is in crisis is the modern liberal model that has spread to the whole world in its quest to create a globalized model. In this context, the question of the possible future for the Colombo-Ecuadorian Pacific acquires special characteristics. Arguably, the Pacific can be seen potentially as an outpost for a transition to ways of life in which human beings and the planet Earth can, finally, coexist in mutually enriching ways. If this is to be perceived as an option, however, it is necessary for leaders in the region, government experts, and academics to open up to the possibility of a real dialogue of worldviews/visions, as some activists, communities, and intellectuals in the region have been proposing for more than two decades. From such an exercise, a vision of the Pacific as a special territory for life could emerge, a territory with the capacity to imagine new ways of existence for the region, for the country, and for humanity in general.
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Fulfilling this planetary vocation would require a new vision, different from the ‘development’ perspective prevalent in the region. By accepting this historic challenge, the Pacific would be embarking on an ambitious transition strategy in which sustainability of the territory would correspond to the sustainability of life as a whole, detached from any economic conception of productivity, competitiveness, and efficiency. A vision of transition for the Pacific will require a comprehensive co-design strategy involving multiple actors committed to a genuinely inter-cultural dialogue.” - Arturo Escobar, 2016. Sustainability Strategy. A Systematic Change To view the world from a periphery has advantages. In some ways, all AC partners live on the margins, we encourage/express non-dominant views, we look for creative processes that go against the mainstream– in revolt (Farid). This is one of our commons. In our Dream Scenario we’ll build an alternative Pacific School in Chocó, with everyone in our ecosystem who believes in shifting the paradigm. This includes local communities, NGO’s, artists, scientists. We’ll put culture alongside science since they’re inseparable. You can’t protect the Commons without Culture. And cultural attitudes towards the commons underpin sustainability. The commons concept can underpin AC. Through study and sharing the commons in tangible ways – for example MaMa’s crisis in Chocó – a crisis embedded in the communities and the confrontation facing humanity as a whole, we can work together to present alternative ways of living. Buen Vivir - Good Living.
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[Untitled]
Lauren von Gogh - VANSA Arriving first at the office you begin by unlocking the two padlocks on the red steel door. Once in, you lock the one padlock behind you and take the other upstairs so it isn't stolen for scrap metal. On the first floor you unlock the security gate. The door automatically slams locked behind you. There is another padlock on the green sliding security gate, and one more on the grey painted wooden door. You close the sliding gate behind you and put the padlock back on. You place the padlock on the open wooden door, making sure to lock it on so it doesn't get taken. You put your bags and packed lunch down. The storeroom key is hidden in the electricity box or the fridge. You get your laptop out of the storeroom, and lock it behind you, returning the key to the hiding place. You open your laptop and start your day. The others arrive and follow the same routine. In Kyrgysztan Khaldun told us about Riwaq's team breakfasts. They each take something to share for breakfast, or if there is time they will cook together, if there is limited time they'll order something. I think about Riwaq's context, which I've only ever known from an abstract distance before meeting him in Kyrgyzstan. In Costa Rica I spoke a bit more with him, and he shared snippets of his daily life, of his children, of the schools they go to, of their compulsory annual holidays to escape for a while. After Kyrgyzstan Molemo and I organise a breakfast to share our Assembly experiences with the rest of the team. We say we should do this more often. That week we buy a two plate stove, I bring a pot from home, Molemo brings a pan, someone else brings spices. It takes two hours to get organised, cook, eat, clean together.
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The next day we make flap jacks. Scrambled eggs the day after that. We use the hand carved wooden spoon from 705 to dish up the eggs. We try to be consistent at not skipping the most important meal of the day. Breakfasts become our place for deep study, they're added into our programming for the next three years. We talk about openness and who we want to invite over for breakfast. In November we started researching collectives in Southern Africa for a research report. Our main brainstorming sessions were over breakfast, this time on Molemo's balcony as we had since left the space with many locks. Knowing a little bit about Kunci's work, we asked them if they had any texts for us to work from. Ferdi kindly sent us a pre published version of a piece by Kunci. We didn't take the time to read it together or study it, but in retrospect it became a very important reference point for the project. In this here scenario, we would've invited Dina and Ferdi to join our breakfast (via Skype), to share friendship, synchronised meals (maybe their's would be dinner) and co-learning. We would take the time to hear their process behind writing and researching, we would borrow from their methodologies instead of scrambling to find our own. The act of eating and sharing breakfasts with each other, with our ecosystem, with AC friends, is a micro action to be used for co-learning, to create sustainable friendships, sustainable networks, to get perspective and insight, for peer review, to share knowledge, to listen. And also hopefully to have real life breakfasts eventually. While thinking of this, I was also thinking of: Friendship sustainability Common meals Cooking together Deeper study makes you happy, makes you work smarter, fills your mind, fills your tummy. Healthy rituals
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The present of that is the future network
Ferdiansyah Thajib - KUNCI Cultural Studies Center In 2022, the number of members of the not so mysterious network has lessened from a total of 25 organizations in the beginning, to a solid 15. The other 10 groups had opted out of the collaborative platform due to various reasons. Some decided that the network are not for them, a few group disbanded due to hostile political situation in their home country, a couple organisations are dissolved by their initiators as they wanted to focus more on their individual art practices, and some could not afford to continue living because the network stopped providing them with institutional funding. Yes, that’s right. The remaining 15 organizations are now working without instutitional support from international fundings, including DOEN Foundation. In order to subsist the collective activity within the network, three of the financially strongest organizations in the family took the decision to donate 20 percent of their public funding to support the collective network. But the amount of funds is not without limits. There is no more core funding for the remaining organizations. Some of the funds are only available for a streamlined version of the annual gathering, which is called the Assembly (streamlined here means that instead of an annual gathering of more than 40 individual participants for more than 10 days meeting to not more than 20 individual participants attending a 5 days meeting); one smaller scale meeting which is called Banga, per year (which is only held based on urgent need). And the rest of the money can only go to institutional supporting of three newest members in the network.
33 Oh did I forget to mention that? Yes, the network can bring in three new fledglings into the core circle. These new organizations are brought in either through call-out or from the wider ecosystem. They will have the rights to experience the first three years of funding as the rest of the first generation of members, and they will have the right to quit the network also if they are not sustained by the end of the 3 years. But if they decide to stay after the 3 years, they will not be receiving money as well, like all the others. These new members are exposed to similar set of tasks as the other members: attending assembly and bangas, answering to call for help from other organization. Having these new members are important since they bring in new voices (and new blood) into the ecosystem. In the not-so-far dsytopia, (or is it more an utopia?), money has lost its charm. True that primarily it is because resources are becoming more scarce due to financial crisis in the global arts world, but also because the remaining members have learned that in order to stay in the common rhythm of collaboration, the power of money has becoming less attractive. Not to say that more organizations or artist collectives within the global structure are getting richer or more established. While some of them do manage to become a level of finacial stability; some of the smaller members of this particular clan of arts and cultural practitioners remain as poor as they were before, others are even facing worsening conditions; some had lost their working space and assets due to debt, budget deficit or natural catastrophe. What has been animating the collective activities within the network is a habit to work together across formats and contents. The remaining members of individual organizations have become so accustomed in informally doing things together, such as through residencies; doing study or research; collaborative projects or even just conducting impromptu exchanges in each others’ local activities or events. To support this disenchantment with the idea of a funded network, in 2019 during the Assembly decision-making process in Johannesburg all members have agreed upon the introduction of a alternative currency system. For a less obvious, let’s call it Yenta for now.
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Yenta comprises of 10 coins in different colors that are given to each organizations following the realization that that there is no more money left to support the 25 organisations institutionally after 2020. The Yenta coins have four colors, 6 blue coins, three red coins, and one green. Each colors represent the exchange units of time spent=work. The blue coin is valued as 2 hours, of work red equals to 24 hours, and white 72 hours. There is also 3 gold coins in the whole network, which function differently to the other three colors. I will explain later what it will be used for.
35 Each organization has the right to offer or ask the help from other members of AC for a range of expertise (ranging from giving talk or workshop, creative/strategic consultancy, study/research/artistic expertise, manual labor). The time allocated for fulfilling a certain task is represented by the Yenta coins being exchanged. Those providing the time and service will got the coins from the ones demanding the support. The ones that provide the most help will eventually have the most coins. They can spend it to get in more expertise. So there is a possibility that some organizations are running out of Yenta coins because they only ask from, but never provide help to, others. In the case where one or more organizations became Yenta-less, they can ask for additional coins from the Bank.
Wait. What Bank?
Where does art come in in all this? I think art is inherent in the types of activities that are marked by this exchange of Yenta: it cannot just be any other task, it has to be in the direction of supporting each organization’s activities in the local context (of course in art and culture) and also in sustaining the general practices of the entire collective.
Oh ya, again I forgot to mention. The Bank, is basically the governing body in the network responsible in overseeing the traffic exchanges of Yenta. The bank’s main role is to issue additional Yenta coins once a demand is made by the organizations running out of coins. Apart from overseeing the exchange of Yenta, the Bank is also in charge of caregiving to the health of the network as well as in funraising. The bank comprises of 3 individuals representing three organizations within the nameless network. As the Bank officers have quite a lot of responsibility, each organization will receive one Yenta gold coins, in addition to the blue, red and white coins. The membership of the bank gradually rotates every 2 or 3 years. No organization can stay in the Bank for more than 3 years. The Yenta gold coin cannot be exchanged but can only be passed down to another member (who has not yet has been appointed in the Bank) when an organization completed its term of office. The Yenta gold can only be received the second time by the same organization after a whole 15 organizations take leadership in the bank.
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DAY ONE HMWK
Yolande van der Heide - Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons SCENCE 1 SETTING: A 40 min train ride between Sloterdijk Amsterdam and Utrecht We bike past Sunday morning tennis players. Witnessing flesh exposed and at work, we joke that we’ll play banga with our international friends later, our Sunday work. “Work breaks us; we break work”. A moment later we pass a woman and full navy blue burka, it’s warm out for a change. News headline, reiterated through Facebook: CAN BLACK CAPITALISM EVER TRULY HEAL BLACK PEOPLE? JAY-Z might think so, but this writer isn't too sure. Mia Charlene White writes on Cassius Life:
American capitalism is rooted in slavery, murder, rape, patriarchy, land theft and indigenous genocide. Black capitalism is still rooted in white supremacy, even if it seems to be about representing the race well. The feel-good of Black capitalism is rooted in the false belief that we can buy our way to freedom, when we cannot. Singing “I’m sorry” songs, however deep or romantic, however therapeutic or transformative, and selling those songs for the purposes of billionaire profit-making, is still capitalism. In other words, just as we begin to sense the opportunity for sonic healing, we peel back the curtain and realize capitalism will never set us free—only we together, can do that (otherwise, “...even when we win, we gon lose”).
Internal dialogue: I’m diverting and I procrastinating and will have to finish this article on the train ride back.
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Listening and thinking through: Nina Simone, Four Women My skin is black My arms are long My hair is woolly My back is strong Strong enough to take the pain inflicted again and again What do they call me? My name is AUNT SARAH My name is Aunt Sarah My skin is yellow My hair is long Between two worlds I do belong My father was rich and white He forced my mother late one night What do they call me? My name is SAFFRONIA My name is Saffronia My skin is tan My hair is fine My hips invite you my mouth like wine Whose little girl am I? Anyone who has money to buy What do they call me? My name is SWEET THING My name is Sweet Thing My skin is brown my manner is tough I'll kill the first mother I see my life has been too rough I'm awfully bitter these days because my parents were slaves
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Internal dialogue: Remember Ntone’s (Edjabe) lesson that music is a source of knowledge and can be studied accordingly What is you started with the name of the piece instead? If “it’s all in the name”, start by naming it Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, Sweet Thing, PEACHES, The Teaches of Peaches? No, college theme songs please Amandla Ngawetu? When thinking about other forms of commons Lauren from VANSA from reminds us of about Ubuntu and the Khoisan of Southern Africa… Pas op! Under one of the oldest trees in Utrecht1, the so-called Oriental plane (Platanus orientalis), Patrick responds to Ferdi’s query about the influence of Lubumbashi’s mining industry on culture at large, and shares that in Kiswahili the word for be careful is the same or taken from the Belgian word Pasop. We laugh – as we can now—at this embodiment or subversion of the word. Lubumbashi, I will later learn through a wiki search is the sister city of Liége and Kiswahili is still considered a “dialect”, and supposedly not a language in its own right and I recall wearisome conversations with Dutch people, where I reside, who are often quick to point out South Africa’s many dialect (nor recognizing them as English) and proud to recognize Afrikaans as a dialect of their yet less quick to claim the colonial legacy at the root of all of this.
Location: Abraham Dolehof, Utrecht Specimen: Oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) "24819" Tree species: Oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) Coordinates: 52.088212, 5.122307 N52 5.293 E5 7.338 52° 5' 17.56" N, 5° 7' 20.31" E 1
39 Pas op! Magazine Born from these kinds of subversive-perversions of terms and bringing a multiplicity their meaning Pas Op Magazine could depart from the saturated terms of “global south” and “global north” to examine examples of economic, state, and cultural relations marked by centrality and marginality within global systems of domination and dependency. The magazine could adopt these loaded relations as a basis for intellectual analysis and imaginative creation, and question how “south” functions as a term to cite the “negated”. In doing so, Pas op seeks to find ways of acknowledging and drawing attention to intercultural dialogue and practice. If Arts Collaboratory is a micro-site for experiment, then Pasop! Could be a micro-micro site for AC practice?
Note to self: Insert the AC ethical principles here… Internal dialogue: Try to rhyme it’s a cheap trick and simplistic buy maybe affective. Would writing come more fluently to me if we had not immigrated from South Africa to the Netherlands where I mostly converse with people who use English as their second or third language? Would I have more claim to the Xhosa term, Amandla Ngawetu? Try as we may to disseminate, to hook and debate. Imagine if you can an AC magazine, lasting a sustained life span. Not the newest of ideas from this gang, caught in the middle of our organizational work and the desire to transcend beyond a typical network. So if commons are best thought of in tandem with economy (co-managed resource pools), why not recycle and refine some of our half-baked ideas to initiate a magazine with our AC peers as the editorial board. We could depart, as we might, from our common work. What would it mean indeed to publish segment of our future plan, report or put in print? Some of these generated tools alongside this? Imagine if you will, a magazine born in AC and bred in the diaspora with commissioned writers and thinkers from our respective locals.
Note to self: insert segments reviewing the Diaspora Pavilion at Venice Biennale this year...
40 Amandla Ngawetu: ISSUE 0: Are We Necessary? A research on what is already there, can we piggy back or collaborate better? Founding Editors: Casco, Kunci, Raw Material + anyone with publishing desire and capacity + Chimurenga Rotating Editors All of AC, three at a time Translations French, Spanish and English (our primary languages of use within AC) but further translations into other languages could happen. Copy editors from three regions Editorial managers from three regions Design: someone non-white and not male, sorely lacking in the discipline, in the Netherlands. Co-publishers Distribution Power: City by city depending on editors and based on the bookshop / center we want support. Pitch can be to larger distributors like Valiz that we can do the leg work (to help expand their reach) Creative commons Few months The above evolved into the below project description made for Casco’s Mondriaan application for it 2018-2020 Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, submitted on 1 September
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Angry Letters / Our Will in Words It is estimated that a total of 10 000 words in the Indonesian language can be traced back to Dutch, and which are dubbed “loanwords.” Abolition for example is “abolisi” coming from the Dutch word “abolitie.” In a different colonial context and in what we can understand as a counter hegemonic speech act, in Kiswahili the word for be careful is the same as the Belgian Dutch word Pas op! And with the growing dominance of English as a global language, one often has to struggle to find a suitable corresponding term in any given local context. The same goes for the notion of “the commons” at stake at Casco in the coming years. The Bantu term “ubuntu” in Southern Africa roughly meaning “the essence of a human being” can be used as a translation for the word commons. To this end, bell hooks for example describes how standard American English is the oppressor of Black American vernacular. Ultimately, if we agree that power mechanisms riddle language and in the methods for sharing language and knowledge, engaging with this conundrum should be an important task of sharing and commoning power in the context of decolonization. From 2018 to 2020 Casco will publish a new series of magazines, taking loan words like “Pas-op!” as the theme, tackling the omnipresence of colonial legacies. Collaboration will be a key in both identifying these words or terms and developing a creative discourse, and for strengthening our distribution channels. Every magazine issue will be developed in partnership with existing publishers and with several art organizations from the Arts Collaboratory network / ecosystem and will be published and disseminated in particular local contexts in response to respective (printing) conditions. This in turn, will also inform the The Dutch Art Institute MFA program with students invited to use this thematic for an art work or publication.
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Action goals: - To develop a new magazine series that can potentially grow into an imprint of Casco publishing (2018) - To develop an international publishing and distribution net work with Valiz, Open! and Arts Collaboratory (2018–2020) - To engage in several launches and events at different local and national (art-)bookshops and groups like Vereniging Ons Suriname, Athenaeum and San Seriffe in Amsterdam, and Savannah Bay in Utrecht (2018–2020) - To develop a sub-program for the Dutch Art Institute MFA program dealing with this thematic (2017–2018) Body of collaborators: a.o. Yolande van der Heide (publisher, Casco); the Arts Collaboratory network, especially: KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Indonesia, Cooperativa Cráter Invertido, in Mexico, and 32 Degrees East in Uganda, and Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA); Ntone Edjabe (Cameroonian writer, journalist, DJ, and founding editor of Chimurenga magazine), Kodwo Eshun (British-Ghanaian writer, theorist, filmmaker, Otolith Group member), Nancy Adajania (Indian cultural theorist, art critic, and independent curator); Renée Greene (American artist, writer, and filmmaker); Gloria Wekker (Afro-Surinamese Dutch educator); Chandra Frank (Dutch / South African curator); Marianna Takou (Greek producer and researcher Development Studies); Onze Taal (Den Haag), and a group of national publishers including Valiz and Open! | Platform for Art, Culture and the Public Domain, Athenaeum both in Amsterdam; the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem; bookshops: Athenaeum, San Seriffe, Vereniging Ons Suriname in Amsterdam, and Savannah Bay in Utrecht. Question for Kirakira: What might a distribution network of the commons that focuses on decolonization practices look like and how would it function? And what if we worked from the holes in publishing (like lack of paper choices in Mexico and South Africa) to develop, print, and disseminate knowledge through printed matter and in common?
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The strange fruits
Syafiatudina - KUNCI Cultural Studies Center
How to describe us? The description of us is not only through what makes us, but also what separates yet attaches the self and others. The “I” is constantly being produced in resonance to the Others and vice versa. There is me in Them, and the Others in me. The “us” is a contaminated situation. We left traces onto each other like contamination. The collective and the self are intertwined yet both are still distinguishable. It’s not about dissolving one for the other. Contamination is the fertile ground to amplify the collective struggles. With the overlapping formations of the self and the Other, collective struggles can also take form. But how to make use of contamination for such purpose? To answer this, I’d like to think about us humans through the non-humans. So let’s think of us through fruits. Like humans, fruits have overlapping histories. There are different varieties of apples although they belong to the same family of apples. But this dominant biography of apples, or in fruits, are based on genetic ties or similarities in physical traits. On the other hand, there are fruits which emerge from mutation, circulation and don’t fit to the existing family. This is the case of squared watermelon. Squared watermelon is cube shaped watermelon which was initiated by Tomoyuki Ono, a graphic designer, in 1978
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and was patented in the United States. It was created so that less space is needed to store it or during shipping. It’s still a watermelon but has a different form to other “normal” watermelon. Though the category of watermelon become expanded because of squared watermelon existence. Beside human interventions such as the squared watermelon, strange formed fruits and vegetables are born from environmental conditions. Like entwined carrots can be born in manured soil. In European Union in 2010, there was an attempt to prohibit the sale of misshapen fruits and vegetables by creating “uniform standardization parameters”. This parameter was proposed to prevent curved cucumbers, straight bananas, carrots with multiple legs to go on sale. The proposal was rejected because it can generate more waste and increase the price of fruits and vegetables because only “selected and normal” ones can go to the market. More goods can’t be sold. It is rather unfortunate that this proposal got rejected. To me it is unfortunate because the abundance of unmarketable goods if communally managed can be a source of common wealth. Potatoes which are left behind by farmers or didn’t get selected for market sale will be taken by the gleaners. Gleaners are mostly women from impoverished condition who take the leftovers of harvesting process in farm for their family. I’d like to speculate if this uniform standardization parameters is applied then more fruits/vegetables become unmarketable and it can be shared amongst the commoners. Our society are facing the threat of financialization of every aspects in life. Everything become financially institutionalized. From family to community. They were
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transformed to a gathering that is based on private accumulation and exploitation. When everything becomes easily marketable, to resist is to become unmarketable. To be the strange fruits and misshapen vegetables. What happen when strange fruits are together? Each strange fruit doesn’t fit easily with its own fruit category. I think AC is a network of strange fruits. Each of us doesn’t belong easily in one category (or fruit family). We do art and other things. One thing for sure is we come together because we receive money from the same source. Since we’ve been together as AC network, this has been recurrently stated. Some of us find similarities in terms of works, life experiences, or interests. Some also find striking differences. But I think we should never give up in finding the resonances in between the different struggles. The term “strange fruit” was mentioned casually between Jonathan, Farid, Lauren and I during Utrecht Banga. As far as I can remember, at that time we were discussing about the possibility that the knowledge we created together in AC, will be extracted and co-opted by the market. We joked and said that the extraction process can be disturbed if what we provide is bad juices. Bad juices come from strange fruits. So that’s how I get to the idea of writing about us, the Arts Collaboratory, as a network of strange fruits. To be the strange fruits is to acknowledge our misshapen and brokenness. When it comes to what to do to sustain our being together in misshapen and broken state, I do believe that we have to work together more. Not only work together in building concepts using theories in English. We also need to work together in other materials, like films, books, translations, organizations and many more.
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My scenario of sustainability for AC No more core funding. Only common pot exist. Each organization will voluntarily give min. 5% of their income to the common pot. Some organizations will be consolidated or make sub-groups to work on projects, exhibitions, biennale. These are temporal works. The permanent things are assembly once a year and collaborations between publishing houses in AC. So AC will consist of several publishing houses across the regions. The publishing houses are collaborating on exchanging materials, texts, doing translations, editing, writing. Few of this publishing houses own printing machine. So it’s possible to print our own materials in smaller batch. The publishing houses not only take care of content but also distribution amongst AC network as well as broader ecosystem.
This publishing houses within AC was started by Common Pot money. But then it can sustain itself through selling books and commissioned projects. Related key concepts Decentralization: The network of publishing houses and editorial groups will exchange materials. But they also can decide which material to be published. So each publishing houses produce AC related materials and as well as their own contents. Openness: The publishing houses is working with other publishing houses in its own location.
Sustainability of ideas: It might be a slow process of getting money. But books can contain ideas and bring it to many places.
Degrowth: Instead of working for more and more projects, bigger and bigger scopes of working, producing texts and practice-based writings allows for a more reflective modes of working.
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Aesthetics, imagination and experimentation: art is common (DOSSIER IASC 2017) Georgia Nicolau1, Instituto Procomum
|Originally published in Portuguese in the website of Instituto Procomum (www.procomum.org)2| The meeting with the Arts Collaboratory (AC) network was the great surprise of my participation (as representative of the Procomum Institute), in the 2017 XVI Biennial IASC3 Conference, Practicing the Commons. I had heard of the network and knew that it involved cultural and artistic centers in several countries, but I did not have much more detail than that; even less did I know that they used the concept of commons as a central value. As expected from a collective of artists, when I arrived at the workshop led by the network I noticed that they had changed the format and the aesthetics of the room. The IASC is a very traditional conference in formats, remnants of its academic origin. The practitioners’ labs - such was the name give to the sessions where the comuneros presented their practice based experiences, in contraposition to academic experiences -, were more dynamic, but still they followed the expositive format. At the AC meeting everything was very different. In the AC workshop there were panels and papers stuck to the wall, including the ethical principles of the network (also printed in socks that they distributed to the participants), which they consider a work in progress.
The author can be reached at georgia@procomum.org Originally published in Portuguese in the website of Instituto Procomun (www.procomum.org) (http://www.procomum.org/2017/08/04/ estetica-imaginacao-e-experimentacao-a-arte-e-comum-dossie-iasc-2017-uma-viagem-pelo-comum/) 3 The International Association for the Study of the Commons 1 2
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Among them I highlight the ones that have attracted my attention: radical imagination, self-care, micro-politics, decay, openness, self-organization, solidarity, hospitality, study. See all here.4 We began by listening to a presentation of what the Arts Collaboratory was and who participated in it: a trans-local network of 25 organizations around the world focused on arts and social change processes. Of the 25, ten were represented in the workshop. The theme of the day was: living the common rhythm; or how to sustain a self-organized network of common-based cultural organizations? Participants were divided into smaller groups, organized by language, an important issue for the network, which is defined as trans-local and transnational. "We resist English, although we use it" said Farid Rakun, coordinator of the Ruangrupa Institute in Indonesia, one of the nodules of the AC network. The methodology suggested by them called for each group to designate a host, a person responsible for the harvest, a guardian of process and a guardian of intention and to discuss the proposed topics and then return to the plenary. There were two suggested themes:
1) The Curious Economy of Art What are the "commons" -the common resources- which art • and culture organizations or their networks generate? What kind of values do they have, and how are they managed, especially when they are not material goods and have no monetary value? How does public or private funding influence the work of arts • and cultural organizations based on the Commons? What are your visions for the continuity / sustainability of your work? How is the production, management and maintenance of • common goods trans-local? How to share resources equally in different economic and geopolitical contexts?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fhnO9mFMvreD6qwD6-vYYkkcBRlbXFLWdIqkVnZIyoo/edit# 4
50 2) Commons as a lifeline • How can we imagine working together as a network outside existing institutional models (legal, political, economic)? What other modalities need to be created in order to establish a radical imagination in eco-systemic relationships? • How to maintain deep connectivity amid a restricted mobility regime (visa problems, high travel costs, and restrictive (in)migration policies? • With regard to an ecosystem of artistic and cultural organizations working at the trans-local and transnational levels, how can we manage the tension between the Commons and Community? I felt a sense of joy and a sense of relief at seeing reflected many of the concerns and reflections that we are addressing in the construction of the Procomum Institute and our Santista Lab (LABxS). After the group's discussions, we returned to the plenary and we all shared our thoughts in front of the wider audience. All workshop documentation is available at this link.5 In the workshop, we learned that there would be a book presentation about art and the commons to take place in Casco, an organization from AC that was also supportive of the IASC Conference organizing the Children Commons Program. The book, edited by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna -Spaces of Commoning: Artistic Research and the Utopia of Everyday- is by Casco, an organization in transition
"If, however, we consider art as a prominent field for developing counter-hegemonic aspirations and counter-dominant visions for society, then art should be re-appropriated as a crucial field of commoning. It is not a matter of sharing what is already recognized as art but of choosing to rethink, to reevaluate and to perhaps remake what is taken and appreciated as art. This is how artistic work may gesture toward the discovering of new ways of being in com5
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7m9SjGwfbFzMTBORGFxUi02WHc
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mon. If art may be a field of experimentations that expand and challenge established patterns of feeling and thinking, then the practice of art-as-commoning can possibly explore patterns of feeling and thinking shaped in common." (Stavros Stavrides in Emancipatory Commoning6) When I arrived at Casco's headquarters, I came upon an exhibition that contained excerpts from books about the commons (such as the one above), installations, videos, panels, excerpts from conversations, and internal documents of the institute's staff. I gradually understood that it was the documentation of a process that had begun long before the exhibition. And it was exactly that: the exhibition documents and materializes a phase of the transition from Casco - office to Art, Design and Theory to Casco Art Institute: Working for the Common (Casco Art Institute - CAI). The transition began in 2014 with a project called Composing the Commons which included a series of artistic experiments, but also organizational ones such as the "Place to Unlearn: Art Organization" project. I believe that this excerpt from the book below gives an idea of what this project was about:
Cleaning together Unlearning Exercise: We cleaned our office every Monday morning. We divide the tasks, sometimes we put music and we put the time of 30 minutes. What to unlearn: Undervalue reproductive work; hierarchies and uneven division in domestic work in terms of who does what; and making reproductive work the last priority and not feeling satisfaction in doing. In "Space to Unlearn". Casco's team and artist Annette Krauss. Book: Spaces for Commoning: Artistic Research and the Utopia of Every Day.
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https://www.onlineopen.org/emancipatory-commoning
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Exhibition The title "Working for the Commons", in the eyes of the Casco team means practicing and understanding the commons beyond the concept of a pool of resources to be managed; as a value system, governance principle, and a path to counter-hegemonic relationships. For this, they claim the thoughts and feminist ethics of Silvia Federici, bell hooks and Nina Simone composing a character named after all of them: Nina Bell Federici, who embodies a kind of north, but also a symbol, presence and exercise of radical imagination. The exhibition offers a kind of conceptual toolbox for the common from and through art, putting into practice the essential points in the organization's restructuring: Action (experimental proposals for social change with artists), Body (invisible organizational forces), and Kirakira (space for radical imagination). These three aspects replace, in the organization's proposition, the traditional vocabulary of artistic organizations such as exhibition, education, publication, etc. The triad was transformed into a work of art by the artist Fernando Garcia-Dory and was also on display. The exhibition was divided into various environments, formats and infrastructures along the two-story house. Scattered along the way, in the corridors and on the stairs, a series of quotes from texts about the common inspired the participants. There was a wide scope for understanding the proposed experience, which was made up of details from various projects
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developed or under development, such as objects, films and installations. There was also an area called Curiosity Enforcement Offices (GCA), which included, for example, posters in English and Spanish from the Convention on the Use of Space: a self-defined and collaboratively built first legal instrument that deals with the use and value of housing and work spaces against financial speculation and abandoned real estate. The convention can be accessed here.7 The Cabinet of Curiosities was also composed of events'documentation as well as the machine of the Parasite Lottery project: a lottery system pilot project for funding art organizations in the Netherlands. A mix of the lottery system and arisan - a popular coop system from Indonesia - that facilitates a collective savings system as well as social ties. Part of the money goes to the organization of social events, where artists and cultural practitioners share knowledge and reflections on cultural politics and other related debates. Learn more here.8 In their effort to radically reimagine institution/art space, Casco's organizational documents such as minutes of meetings, budgets, schedules, task lists have become works of art. In one of the rooms, the artists Maja Bekan and Gunndis Yr Finnbogadรณttir selected part of this content to compose their research on productivity, temporality, friendship and ways of working together. The conversations were then transformed into a kind of collage of texts and diagrams on large panels that could be moved by visitors.
7 8
http://www.useofspaceconvention.org/ http://www.parasitelottery.com/
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In the next room, another installation was inspired by the concept of ecosystem used by both Casco and the Arts Collaboratory network: a table with papers including notes, excel sheets, budgets, salaries and other articles could be reorganized and the information recomposed. Based on the three forms of activities that Casco is using, the artist Riet Wijnen proposed different categories for the texts: theoretical (understanding the Commons), structuring (organizational, financing, etc.) and practical (day to day). Where I look, the joining of freedom and radical imagination with an aesthetic conceptualization has led Casco to a place of organizational experimentation that allows to present the questions and to try to answer them through theory and practice, especially through anti-colonialist and feminist theories, and through partnerships and collaborations inside and outside Europe. I thought that if Massimo de Angelis says there are no Communes without Communing, there is certainly no Commons without Art, and vice versa.
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Colophon Living the Commons Rhythm: The Arts Collaboratory Handbook of Good Living. This book accompanies AC Banga on Commons in Utrecht, The Netherlands, 8-9 July 2017 which was held in with the Practitioner’s Lab as part of Practicing the Commons: Self-Governance, Cooperation, and Institutional Change the XVI Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) 10-14 July 2017. Compiled by Ferdiansyah Thajib, with contributions by Binna Choi, Jonathan Collins, Alexander Correa, Gertrude Flentge, Lauren von Gogh, Marion Louisgrand Sylla, Georgia Nicolau, Farid Rakun, Yolande van der Heide, Syafiatudina, Ferdiansyah Thajib, and illustration pages by Dominique Ratton Perez. Thanks to Vincent van Velsen, Patrick Mudakereza and Yu-lan van Alphen for their participations in the Banga meeting. Designed by Irindhita Laras Putri.
The organizations in the AC Ecosystem are:
32○ East (Kampala) Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art (Jerusalem) Art Group 705 (Bishkek) Ashkal Alwan (Beirut) Casa Tres Patios (Medellín) DOEN Foundation (Amsterdam) Centre Soleil d'Afrique (Bamako) Cooperativa Cráter Invertido (Mexico City) Darb 1718 Contemporary Art and Culture Center (Cairo) Casco Art Institute – Working for the Commons (Utrecht) Doual’art (Douala) Kër Thiossane (Dakar) Kiosko Galería (Santa Cruz de la Sierra) KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Yogyakarta) lugar a dudas (Cali) Más Arte Más Acción (Choco) Nubuke Foundation (Accra) Platohedro (Medellín) Picha Art Center (Lubumbashi) Raw Material Company (Dakar) Riwaq (Ramallah) ruangrupa (Jakarta) TEOR/éTica (San José) Theerta (Colombo) VANSA (Johannesburg)
http://www.artscollaboratory.org/