A GLOSSARY OF COMMONING TERMS: THINKING ART FROM A COLLECTIVE PERSPECTIVE
What does it mean to be hospitable, make alliances, or navigate conflict in the sphere of contemporary art? Five European nonprofit art spaces—La Escocesa, OFF-Biennale, < rotor >, Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17), and tranzit.cz—present a new publication for cultural workers, curators, and artists, that seeks to answer these questions.
The volume is entitled We Cannot Say That We Have Arrived Somewhere, Yet Neither Can We Say That We Haven’t: A Glossary of Commoning Terms, and it summarizes the experiences and learnings of the five socially and politically engaged organizations with community-based and participatory projects at the intersection of visual art, social work, and activism. The book comprises seventeen chapters tackling themes such as self-empowerment, facilitation, emotional labor, hospitality, anti-ableism, and intersectionality.
The glossary attempts to provide a simplified and concentrated overview of experiences in the field of art mediation, and it maps the pitfalls and starting points that organizers of this type of activity face. Using practical examples, readers will learn how to deal with communities in remote areas, how to handle conflict, and how to transform event spaces and programming so that they don’t only meet the needs of the majority and able-bodied population.
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The Glossary (Print-at-Home edition). Jonás Verespej (tranzit.cz)
The glossary is written in accessible language and is intended primarily for cultural workers who want to develop a responsive and mindful public program in not-for-profit organizations such as art galleries, artist-in-residence programs, community centers, artist-run spaces, interdisciplinary venues, and so on. The views and insights in this book are place- and time-specific—they reflect activities held in Barcelona (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Graz (Austria), Prishtina (Kosovo), and Prague (Czech Republic) in the years 2024 and 2025.
The book was published in the framework of Art Space Unlimited, which is a project that emerged from the shared desire and effort to open institutions toward people who, for various reasons, have difficult, complicated, disabled, or limited access to art, whether as creators, participants, or viewers. The project was established by the organizations tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic), < rotor > (Graz, Austria), OFF-Biennale (Budapest, Hungary), La Escocesa (Barcelona, Spain), and Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17) (Prishtina, Kosovo). The project was co-financed by the European Union and ran from 2024 to 2025.
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The Glossary (Print-at-Home edition). Jonás Verespej (tranzit.cz)
We Cannot Say That We Have Arrived Somewhere, Yet Neither Can We Say That We Haven’t: A Glossary of Commoning Terms is available in Albanian, Czech, English, German, Hungarian, and Spanish free of charge at emotional-labor.eu in various formats (print-at-home, EPUB) and as plain text.
*Cover image: illustration for the glossary. Day Shift Office/ tranzit.cz.
