On Saturday 27 March from 10:00–15:00 the first C4R (Cultures for Resilience) seminar will be held online, aiming to question governance tools for civic
Tag - commons
Since 2005, the P2P Foundation has been researching, cataloging and advocating
for the potential of P2P and Commons-based approaches to societal and
consciousness change. The P2P Foundation (officially, The Foundation for P2P
Alternatives) is a non-profit organization and global network dedicated to
advocacy and research of commons-oriented peer to peer (P2P) dynamics in
society.
P2P is an abbreviation of “peer to peer”, sometimes also described as “person to
person” or “people to people”. The essence of P2P is this direct relationship,
and its core characteristics include:
Creation of common goods through open, participatory production and governance
processes Universal access guaranteed through licenses such as Creative Commons,
GPL, Peer Production Licence. P2P is a process or dynamic that can be found in
many communities and movements self-organising around the co-creation of culture
and knowledge. Well known general examples include the free/open source software
movement; free culture; open hardware; and open access in education and science.
The Commons is a concept and practice that has been steadily gathering increased
attention and advocates. Deeply rooted in human history, it’s difficult to
settle on a single definition that covers its broad potential for social,
economic, cultural and political change. The Commons is now demonstrating its
power as a “key ingredient” for change in diverse locations and contexts around
the world.
P2P/commons-oriented communities, values and practices are now also increasingly
present in the world of physical production through open design, the sharing
economy and co-working in hacker/makerspaces and Fab-labs. These movements
represent a cultural shift towards new kinds of democratic and economic
participation that we believe are sowing the seeds for a more sustainable,
egalitarian future.
The P2P Foundation, with its particular focus on the relationship of the Commons
and P2P practices, is supporting this Commons transition by helping to share
knowledge and develop tools to create common value and facilitate open,
participatory input across society. Source: With thanks to graphic artist
Juliane Höhle ; twitter = @JulianeHoehle; and Leif Ostman, Uppsala University
and Katrien Van Poeck, RUG-CDO. Credit: Stefano Borghi
Source text
Noailles Debout The association aims at cultural production, heritage creation
and participation of the inhabitants in the definition of urban policies in
terms of development, social and cultural life and the expression and
circulation of visions, popular knowledge and non-dominant ideas. text source
Photo by Noailles Debout Photo by Jean De Peña / Noailles debout Photo by Jean
De Peña / Noailles standing Photo by Noailles Standing
Saturday 16 October 2021, 14:00–17:00 (with party afterwards)
Travelling Farm Museum depot (Winkelcentrum Leidsche Rijn Centrum, Hof van Bern
33, 3541 DD Utrecht)
RSVP info below, free of charge
Wheelchair accessible. No toilet present
Agriculture is one of the most fundamental as well as contested fields of
practice today. While the expanded industrialization has made it a principal
cause of the climate crisis, there are many “forgotten” knowledges, skills, and
stories in agriculture that have sustained the balance in the human-nature
relationship. Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills began its tour in 2020
by visiting local agricultural initiatives in and around Utrecht’s Leidsche
Rijn, a once vast, green, farm land. Despite the pandemic conditions, every week
over late spring and summer, we took grounded tours, meeting and learning with
an amazing list of incredibly knowledgeable and generous farmers.
Now with the season of autumn returning, we organize a day of gathering to share
the harvest of the Travelling Farm Museum and its special guests, to look back
together at the labor and movement of the last seasons, and to get to know each
other more with food, music, and perhaps dance! By doing so, we would also like
to feel and envision together the near future of varying agricultural sites and
the Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills.
Reservations are highly recommended for a safe and joyful gathering: please
reserve via tfmdepot@gmail.com. We advise that you stay home if you have any
Covid-19 symptoms. Please be kindly aware that you may need to show a valid QR
code to enter. Children are welcome to join and play, also testing the
“un-learning kit” for children at school and at home.
Program
14:00 farmers’ market & exhibition (the door opens 15 min before) 15:00
collaborative food citizens game* 17:00 finger food & music (closing at 20:00)
Please bring your own “harvest” from food to artworks and knowledge of the year
to share! We also recommend you come by bike. If sunny, we may go and cycle
together.
* During the Oogstfeest farmers, neighbors, and food experts, including you,
are invited to join the first session of the Food Game developed by Play the
City. The game outlines a common and sustainable vision of how regional and
healthy food could be organized in Utrecht West in the coming years. Your
knowledge and experience during this game session is of great importance
toward accelerating the transition to a more sustainable food system.
–
Documentation of the event by Chun Yao Lin:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8j811byznxk8f77/AACRgN02_mFKcdvSAhuH5lwla?dl=0
Saturday 16 October 2021, 14:00–17:00 (with party afterwards)
Travelling Farm Museum depot (Winkelcentrum Leidsche Rijn Centrum, Hof van Bern
33, 3541 DD Utrecht)
RSVP info below, free of charge
Wheelchair accessible. No toilet present
Agriculture is one of the most fundamental as well as contested fields of
practice today. While the expanded industrialization has made it a principal
cause of the climate crisis, there are many “forgotten” knowledges, skills, and
stories in agriculture that have sustained the balance in the human-nature
relationship. Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills began its tour in 2020
by visiting local agricultural initiatives in and around Utrecht’s Leidsche
Rijn, a once vast, green, farm land. Despite the pandemic conditions, every week
over late spring and summer, we took grounded tours, meeting and learning with
an amazing list of incredibly knowledgeable and generous farmers.
Now with the season of autumn returning, we organize a day of gathering to share
the harvest of the Travelling Farm Museum and its special guests, to look back
together at the labor and movement of the last seasons, and to get to know each
other more with food, music, and perhaps dance! By doing so, we would also like
to feel and envision together the near future of varying agricultural sites and
the Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills.
Reservations are highly recommended for a safe and joyful gathering: please
reserve via tfmdepot@gmail.com. We advise that you stay home if you have any
Covid-19 symptoms. Please be kindly aware that you may need to show a valid QR
code to enter. Children are welcome to join and play, also testing the
“un-learning kit” for children at school and at home.
Program
14:00 farmers’ market & exhibition (the door opens 15 min before) 15:00
collaborative food citizens game* 17:00 finger food & music (closing at 20:00)
Please bring your own “harvest” from food to artworks and knowledge of the year
to share! We also recommend you come by bike. If sunny, we may go and cycle
together.
* During the Oogstfeest farmers, neighbors, and food experts, including you,
are invited to join the first session of the Food Game developed by Play the
City. The game outlines a common and sustainable vision of how regional and
healthy food could be organized in Utrecht West in the coming years. Your
knowledge and experience during this game session is of great importance
toward accelerating the transition to a more sustainable food system.
–
Documentation of the event by Chun Yao Lin:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8j811byznxk8f77/AACRgN02_mFKcdvSAhuH5lwla?dl=0
What enables a community to operate with minimal reliance on money? The Rojava
Film Commune works for the production, distribution, and reception of films
depicting and documenting the stateless society of Rojava, Kurdish and Arab
culture, and the region’s continuing military and ideological struggles.
The Rojava Film Commune is a collective of filmmakers founded in Rojava in 2015,
it was created with the purpose of bringing cinema to the people of Rojava and
further developing its democratic revolution.
Rojava is more than a region located in the Northern and Eastern Syria. It is an
autonomous government established in 2014 while surviving what’s often referred
as the Syrian war ridden with geopolitical complication. It’s based on the
radical democratic principle whereby key values such as cooperativism,
diversity, women, ecology rule. The film commune is one of many communes that
form the basis of Rojava governance.
SOURCES:
Roza The Country Of Two Rivers, a Documentary of Rojava Revolution by Rojava
Film Commune:
Rojava Film Festival
CHANNELS
You can watch a selection of the collective's works on their youtube channel
here.
You can follow Rojava Film Commune's communication channels here and here.
Collective Pot? Art of practicing the commons-based economy of resilience
Online course
Saturday 18 September 2021, 14:00-17:00 (CET)
To get involved, please register here!
Over the last decades, economic inequality and insecurity have only increased.
There’s the financial capitalist economy as the key operator for this
phenomenon. It abstracts value away from material worlds, use and
sustainability, while simultaneously watering down the collective spirit. The
field of art is not free from this systemic condition. One might say it has been
functioning rather as an exemplary model of the capitalist economy through its
emphasis on individual autonomy and its unregulated, fluctuating market values,
disregarding materiality and labor in the process. However, there are also those
who wish to change these cogs of the art world, taking back the economy with art
at heart. These economic transformations are based on values relating to the
commons, such as diversity, equity, pluralism, and sustainability, thus creating
the conditions for a culture of resilience – one that resists, repairs and
regenerates.
Collective Pot? Art of practicing the commons-based economy of resilience is an
online pilot course organized by Casco Art Institute within the framework of
C4R. This course features artists, artistic collectives and other practitioners
who will offer guidance to use and adapt relevant tools for a resilient economy.
Currently we have assembled four tools for close workshops. We recommend this
course to those who seek to liberate themselves from individual survivalism and
sole dependency on money and its accumulation. Not only does this course focus
on the use of the tools – it is also a forum to discuss and co-develop them
together. Via Collective Pot?, we aim to support the participants, equip them
with necessary skills as well as embody the culture of the commons in “concrete
engagement” (Friction. A. Tsing, p. 267) with their lived cases.
Please find more information on the course with the introduction to the tools
and workshops, and how to get involved below.
The working language of the course will be English and features captioning
throughout.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
List of four tools and workshops
The course consists of four workshops each of which focuses on a specific tool
for the commons based economy of resilience with art at heart. The following are
the teasers for each tool.
More information on the tools, being updated over time, are available on the
OpenTools section on the C4R digital platform. The platform is built on the
resilient technological methods and takes on such mode of operation as set up
and managed by one of the C4R partners, NetHood (Zurich).
Rojava Film Commune by Rojava Film Commune, channeled by Sevinaz Evdike
Rojava is more than a region located in the Northern and Eastern Syria. It is an
autonomous government established in 2014 while surviving what’s often referred
as the Syrian war ridden with geopolitical complication. It’s based on the
radical democratic principle whereby key values such as cooperativism,
diversity, women, ecology rule. The film commune is one of many communes that
form the basis of Rojava governance.
“Rojava aspires to a nonhierarchical and directly democratic system; its
political structure is rooted in small, local assemblies in which decisions are
discussed and agreed on collectively. Although private property has not been
abolished, segments of agriculture and industry are cooperatively held. In this
same spirit, the Rojava Film Commune was founded in 2015 as a collective
dedicated to the production, distribution, and reception of films depicting and
documenting the stateless society of Rojava, Kurdish and Arab culture, and the
region’s continuing military and ideological struggles.” (from:
https://www.artforum.com/print/202007/alan-gilbert-on-the-rojava-film-commune-83689
Especially Sevinaz Evdike, one of the Commune’s members will focus on what
enables them to operate with minimal reliance on money, the importance of
cultural, ideological and spiritual practices enabling their cooperative,
autonomous models of governance.
Art for Universal Basic Income by Institute of Radical Imagination, channeled by
Mao Mollona, Marco Baravalle and Emanuele Braga**
“While the art market confirms his status as a safe-haven assets provider for
the financial elite, the current pandemic has highlighted the fragility and
precarity of art workers around the world, a condition common to a growing
portion of humanity. In this situation a UBI (Universal Basic Income) would then
represent a solution and indeed an urgent measure to implement. But UBI is not
“only” a response to poverty, it is a necessary condition in order to rethink
our extractivist ecological model, to correct many race and gender asymmetries
and, last but not least, to change the art world’s present neoliberal structure.
UBI must be seen as a tool to open up new subjective spaces, alternative to the
dominating entrepreneurial individualism and focused instead on commons and
care” (from
https://instituteofradicalimagination.org/the-school-of-mutation-2020/som-iterations/art-for-ubi/)
Method of valuing the commons by atelier d’architecture autogérée
R-Urban is a project run by atelier d'architecture autogérée based on networks
of urban commons and collective hubs supporting civic resilience practices at
the outskirts of Paris. Around 2015-6, one of the hubs was evicted from its site
by the municipal administration that could not see the value of an “urban farm”
compared to a parking lot. Prompted by this event, aaa took an initiative to
account the value of resilient, ecological, citizen led initiatives.
“Our value accounting gives visibility to what usually is invisible and
uncounted—that is, voluntary unpaid labour, environmental care services,
everyday ecological practices, and well-being improvements.This hidden value is
normally appropriated by the state or the market for free (Bollier, 2016a, p.
30)” from the article “Calculating the value of the commons: Generating
resilient urban futures”
AAA, our partner for C4R experimented and will share with you an accounting
method for the commons based activities which often defy known forms of
transaction such as wage. This method is realized in collaboration with Katherin
Gibson who’s a leading scholar in theorising and promoting “community
economies”.
Open Collective.com by Open Collective, channeled by Caroline Woolard & Pia
Mancini
Caroline Woolard, artist and one of our close interlocutors these days, recently
joined the Open Collective Foundation as Director of Research & Partnership, and
will guide you to the Open Collective tool together with one of the founders,
Pia Mancini.
“Open Collective Foundation is creating a legal, financial, and technical
commons for the solidarity economy. OCF has a unique role to play as steward of
a legal, financial, and technical commons—a piece of shared infrastructure—that
is resonating deeply with the solidarity economy movement. We can build bridges
between 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship, the open source community (where we have
deep roots), mutual aid groups (100+ are hosted by OCF today), and the movement
at large.
A new clarity has emerged for Open Collective Foundation: Solidarity will be our
guiding principle.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to get involved?
We recommend you to get acquainted with each of the four tools before choosing
one – for which you can attend a close workshop by the artists and art
collectives offering the tool. Please also note the information and supportive
documents for the tool continues to be updated on the C4R website.
What enables a community to operate with minimal reliance on money? The Rojava
Film Commune works for the production, distribution, and reception of films
depicting and documenting the stateless society of Rojava, Kurdish and Arab
culture, and the region’s continuing military and ideological struggles.
How can artists organize against the increasing inequality amplified by the
pandemic conditions globally? Art for Universal Basic Income – a campaign
initiated by artists – is converging energies with movements across the world
challenging the market’s current modes of exploitation.
What shape can the infrastructure for the solidarity economy take? The Open
Collective is working to build legal, financial, and technical tools which are
open source and transparent – enabling connections between financial
institutions, cooperatives, mutual aid groups and non-profit organizations.
How is an evaluation method of a commons site created to counter the
conventional value applied to it by governing bodies and decision makers? AAA
builds on the ongoing tradition of the Community Economies framework and its
iceberg iconography. By doing so, they offer a tool that can be adapted,
re-applied and become an ally to groups, communities and commoners to visibilize
what remains conveniently hidden or unaccounted for ‘in the eyes’ of the market
and the government when decisions on such commons sites take place.
Each workshop will take place simultaneously on the same date. There will be
plenary sessions before and after the workshop to get further impressions on the
other tools and relate to fellow participants. Find the detailed program below.
Saturday, 18 September, 14:00 – 17:00 (CET)
Online course
Welcome and Introduction to the project and the online course
14:00 - 14:30
Four close workshops of the four tools
14:30 - 16:00
Plenary session and Q&A
16:00 - 17:00
Registration to the course is possible by filling this form. The registration
and participation fee is suggested in sliding scales. Our intention is to
accommodate 15 participants for each workshop, in order to allow the necessary
interactions. The registration will be closed as we reach this capacity. Please
contact Marianna Takou (marianna@casco.art) for any further inquiry.
What shape can the infrastructure for the solidarity economy take? The Open
Collective is working to build legal, financial, and technical tools which are
open source and transparent – enabling connections between financial
institutions, cooperatives, mutual aid groups and non-profit organizations.
Open Collective Foundation (OCF) is creating a legal, financial, and technical
commons for the solidarity economy. Community is about trust and sharing. Open
Collective lets you manage your finances so everyone can see where money comes
from and where it goes. Collect and spend money transparently.
OCF has a unique role to play as steward of a legal, financial, and technical
commons—a piece of shared infrastructure—that is resonating deeply with the
solidarity economy movement. We can build bridges between 501(c)(3) fiscal
sponsorship, the open source community (where we have deep roots), mutual aid
groups (100+ are hosted by OCF today), and the movement at large.
A new clarity has emerged for Open Collective Foundation: Solidarity will be our
guiding principle.
Source: https://blog.opencollective.com/solidarity-as-our-guiding-principle/
RESOURCES
You can find the Solidarity as Guiding Principle tool by the Open Collective
Foundation here.
Watch a brief presentation of the OCF:
How can artists organize against the increasing inequality amplified by the
pandemic conditions globally? Art for Universal Basic Income – a campaign
initiated by artists – is converging energies with movements across the world
challenging the market’s current modes of exploitation.
Art for Universal Basic Income by the Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI).
While the art market confirms his status as a safe-haven assets provider for the
financial elite, the current pandemic has highlighted the fragility and
precarity of art workers around the world, a condition common to a growing
portion of humanity. In this situation a UBI (Universal Basic Income) would then
represent a solution and indeed an urgent measure to implement. But UBI is not
“only” a response to poverty, it is a necessary condition in order to rethink
our extractivist ecological model, to correct many race and gender asymmetries
and, last but not least, to change the art world’s present neoliberal structure.
UBI must be seen as a tool to open up new subjective spaces, alternative to the
dominating entrepreneurial individualism and focused instead on commons and
care.
If artists are already creating new collective economy models and
alter-institutions, these small scale experiments will be much more valuable
when connected with those growing social movements around the world fighting for
a Universal Basic Income.
The Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI) is a think-tank consisting of
curators, artists, and scholars, whose aim is to develop various forms of
research intervention for the transition into post-capitalism. Together we want
to explore and develop new practices and knowledge that contribute to the
formation of new forms of life and its meanings as the practices of struggle for
the commons. IRI is located at the threshold between Europe and the
Mediterranean.
The School of Mutation is IRI's pedagogical outlet, focused on the need to learn
anew and re-make the world of culture in the unfolding of the biopolitical
emergency brought on by Covid-19. Art For UBI is a campaign initiated in the
framework of the School of Mutation.
ART FOR UBI (MANIFESTO)
1/ Universal and Unconditional Basic Income is the best measure for the arts and
cultural sector. Art workers claim a basic income, not for themselves, but for
everyone.
2/ Do not call UBI any measures that do not equal a living wage: UBI has to be
above the poverty threshold. To eliminate poverty, UBI must correspond to a
region’s minimum wage.
3/ UBI frees up time, liberating us from the blackmail of precarious labor and
from exploitative working conditions.
4/ UBI is given unconditionally and without caveats, regardless of social
status, job performance, or ability. It goes against the meritocratic falsehoods
that cover for class privilege.
5/ UBI is not a social safety net, nor is it welfare unemployment reform. It is
the minimal recognition of the invisible labor that is essential to the
reproduction of life, largely unacknowledged but essential, as society’s growing
need for care proves.
6/ UBI states that waged labor is no longer the sole means for wealth
redistribution. Time and time again, this model proves unsustainable.Wage is
just another name for exploitation of workers, who always earn less than they
give.
7/ Trans-feminist and decolonizing perspectives teach us to say NO to all the
invisible and extractive modes of exploitation, especially within the precarious
working conditions created by the art market.
8/ UBI affirms the right to intermittence, privacy and autonomy, the right to
stay off-line and not to be available 24/7.
9/ UBI rejects the pyramid scheme of grants and of the nonprofit industrial
complex, redistributing wealth equally and without unnecessary bureaucratic
burdens. Bureaucracy is the vampire of art workers’ energies and time turning
them into managers of themselves.
10/ By demanding UBI, art workers do not defend a guild or a category and
depreciate the role that class and privilege play in current perceptions of art.
UBI is universal because it is for everyone and makes creative agency available
to everyone.
11/ Art’s health is directly connected to a healthy social fabric. To claim for
UBI, being grounded in the ethics of mutual care, is art workers’ most powerful
gesture of care towards society.
12/ Because UBI disrupts the logic of overproduction, it frees us from the
current modes of capital production that are exploiting the planet. UBI is a
cosmogenetic technique and a means to achieve climate justice.
13/ Where to find the money for the UBI? In and of itself UBI questions the
actual tax systems in Europe and elsewhere. UBI empowers us to reimagine
financial transactions, the extractivism of digital platforms, liquidity, and
debt. No public service should be cut in order to finance UBI.
14/ UBI inspires many art collectives and communities to test various tools for
more equal redistribution of resources and wealth. From self-managed mutual aid
systems based on collettivising incomes, to solutions temporarily freeing
cognitive workers from public and private constraints. We aim to join them.
Source:
https://instituteofradicalimagination.org/the-school-of-mutation-2020/som-iterations/art-for-ubi/
ART FOR UBI
RESOURCES:
* ART FOR UBI (MANIFESTO) | launching campaign
* ART FOR UBI (Manifesto) #1 | Open online Assembly
* ART FOR UBI (Manifesto) #2 | Open online Assembly
* The paradoxes of gift economy and how basic income could save, change,
abolish art making. A conversation with Dmitry Vilensky and Oxana Timofeeva
The Never-ending story of commoning a farmhouse in the lost farmlands. Looking
back at Erfgoed (Agricultural Heritage and Land Use).
Looking back at the stories of the project Erfgoed (Agricultural Heritage and
Land Use). Erfgoed, a project by The Outsiders and Casco Art Institute: Working
for the Commons, was initiated to build a sustainable platform for ecological
practices that conjure art, agriculture, and the commons in the area Leidsche
Rijn, a sprawling new residential neighborhood in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
You are welcome to visit the Collection of the stories of Erfgoed to find out
more!