Commons Between Dreams and Reality

* Book: Commons. Between Dreams and Reality. Maria Francesca De Tullio (ed.). Creative Industry Košice, 2020

URL = https://www.spacesandcities.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Commons.-From-Dream-to-Reality.pdf

Description

"The book Commons. Between Dreams and Reality addresses how cooperation and collective actions might influence political and economic realities. At its core, it focuses on the practical life of commons and commoning practices, their factors of growth and transformative potential, as well as on the challenges and contradictions which they face. The book examines the commons in relationship with their local environment and how they can become a tool for the economic sustainability of culture. The aim is to articulate an analysis and look at how commons are addressed by institutions and communities in policy-making and everyday practices.

Its publication at the peak of a worldwide pandemic and at a time of unprecedented uncertainty allows those seeking inspiration and hope to understand that cultural commons can create a more inclusive, participatory and just world.

This book is published within the framework of the Cultural and Creative Spaces and Cities (2018—2021) project which is co-funded by the European Commission with the aim of experimenting in grassroots participatory democracy in cultural policies." (https://culturalfoundation.eu/stories/commons-between-dreams-and-reality)

Contents

From the introduction by Maria Francesca De Tullio:

"Pascal Gielen’s ouverture highlights how the EU needs to take culture as the foundation of politics (Gielen 2015). The author argues for the 0.14% of the EU budget that is currently being used for culture to be used for an experimental policy that could make Europe more democratic. Marjolein Cremer’s contribution narrates the challenges of the European Cultural Foundation’s effort to innovate funding schemes. In particular, the programme Connected Action for the Commons aimed at a long-term empowerment of local hubs – instead of a project-based granting – and facilitated the creation of networks that promote new tools for democratic engagement through culture.

The first part of the volume observes commons in relationship with their local environment. All across Europe, the governance of the urban landscape is growingly influenced by private stakeholders, whose promises of investment determine the future of buildings, streets or entire neighbourhoods. In that context, independent and self-governed cultural and creative spaces try to escape this trend, becoming places where everyone can experiment – in a more general way, and also beyond the artistic field – with how self-regulation can be conjugated with accessibility and active inclusion of the precarious or marginalised people, activities or issues.

These experiences lead to different forms of participation, where the community of reference reappropriates spaces and redesigns it through a collective use, thus claiming – per facta concludentia – decision-making rights over the urban planning and the administration of public property. Michele Bee’s contribution shows the democratic potential of these spaces, and what institutions can learn from ‘undecided spaces’, that are continuously being reshaped by cultural actors, porous to the needs of broader communities.

In light of these new democratic dynamics stemming from the bottom up, the question is how EU public authorities can interact with the local ones, in order to become ‘non-neutral’ partners, especially attentive towards the inclusion of minorities and grassroots realities that might be neglected or defied by the government in charge at a local level.

The essay authored by Maria Francesca De Tullio and Violante Torre discusses the processes through which the EU programmes choose Commons. Between Dreams and Reality / 01 / Indtroduction their projects and interlocutors, in a way that might unwittingly favour ‘commons washing’ and exacerbate the unequal representation of stakeholders in the decision-making of local authorities.

The other essays elaborate on what the EU can learn from relevant local practices that were experimented with in the CCSC project. Hablarenarte and Sofia De Juan highlight how public participation can include all the actors that cross the urban spaces, and especially children, whose involvement can bring new languages and attitudes to policy co-creation.

Marcela Arreaga, Sergi Frías and José Rodríguez highlight the importance of local experimentation, by developing the concept of ‘urban labs’ – as “open and flexible organisations where users, researchers, administrations, academics and companies come together to collaborate” in order to produce social innovation.

The second part of the book focuses on how commons can become a tool for the economic sustainability of culture. As mentioned, sharing resources can be a way to both reduce the costs of production – thus producing indirect income – and/or gaining autonomy by appropriating the means of production together.

In that sense, Margherita D’Andrea and Giuseppe Micciarelli put the emphasis on the precariousness of creative labour, by navigating the dialectics between workers’ spontaneous cooperation and institutional support, through an ‘income of creativity and care’ for cultural workers.

Ana Sofía Acosta Alvarado depicts the case study of L’Asilo, highlighting the importance of commons in all aspects of artistic work, but also their difficulties, which call for public support for them, well-tailored to their horizontal, informal and grassroots nature.

Finally, Evi Swinnen and Will Ruddick illustrate the experiment of Bangla-Pesa – a community currency – to question whether a community currency can be a way to connect commons and artists, and so improve the cultural workers’ conditions.

As a conclusion, Michel Bauwens and Evi Swinnen – in conversation with Laure-Anne Vermaerke – speculate on how commons support the recognition and redistribution of public and private powers, as a way to tackle the challenges of our era."

ToC

01 / Introduction / Maria Francesca De Tullio / 6

02 / Culture as a Commons: A European Challenge

* A / Culturing Commoning Culture. Creative Europe: 0.14% for Democracy / Pascal Gielen / 18
* B / A New Journey for the European Cultural Foundation / Marjolein Cremer / 36

03 / Commons, Participation and Urban Spaces

* A / Dreams, Realities and Bogus Labels: Commons, Privatisations and the EU Dimension in Turin / Maria Francesca De Tullio and Violante Torre / 52
* B / Weekly Journal to Inhabit the Uncomfortable. On Child Participation, Culture and the City: the Unknown as a Catalyst of Learning / Hablarenarte and Sofia de Juan / 80
* C / Setting Precedents: Manifatture Knos, Space of Indecision / Michele Bee / 100
* D / How Might Urban Labs Foster Collaborative Innovation Processes? / Marcela Arreaga, Sergi Frías Hernández and José Rodríguez / 120

04 / Commons as Social Ecosystems for Sustainable Culture

* A / Music, Art, the Power and the Capital: a Theoretical Proposal for an Income of Creativity and Care / Giuseppe Micciarelli and Margherita D’Andrea / 132
* B / Depicting the Artistic Biotope of l´Asilo: New Institutions to Foster Artistic Work / Ana Sofia Acosta Alvarado / 162
* C / Speculations on a Currency for the Arts / Evi Swinnen and Will Ruddick / 180

05 / Common Futures

• A / How to Deal with the Unexpected: on Commons, Crisis and Power. Conversation moderated by Laure-Anne Vermaercke / Evi Swinnen and Michel Bauwens / 194

More information

• Downloadable policy conclusions: https://www.spacesandcities.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/policy-final_3-2-ok.pdf

Includes:

/ Urban Commons: an Alternative Model for Cultural Centres / 40 / Local Participation: How to Make it Meaningful? / 47 / New Visions of Decision-making: Homes of Commons / 54

See also: Policies and Governance Models for Urban Cultural Commons