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Circular Gathering: Building a Transformative Ecosystem through the Commons (13.00-16.00)

Friday, October 23 (13.00-16.00)

Platform POST Weverstraat 40, 6811 EM Arnhem

This event is part of the three-part series Interplay of Commons: a Site for Collective Care and Alternative Economies

What are the current replicated struggles of extractivism and marginalisation, and how can collectives address them by initiating modes of sustaining common practices of resistance? How do we encourage others to persist together?

The second part of Interplay of Commons will take shape as a circular discussion exploring situated 'Commoning' knowledges, such as 'Lumbung', and Indonesian rural pre-colonial practices used and adapted by ruangrupa collective, which centers on harvesting and sharing resources for the common good of the community. We will dive into 'Commoning' as a practice of celebration towards reciprocity, regeneration of relationships, and communal healing by looking into translocal collectives and how it is applied within their respective practices. During the Circular Gathering, we invite researchers, activists, and social workers: Dewi Sofia from BalikBayan, an anti-imperialist Filipino Diaspora organization; Nuraini Juliastuti, founder of KUNCI Study Forum & Collective, and Reza Afisina, who is a member of ruangrupa.

Circular Gathering involves our three speakers and participants to discuss various ways to dismantle systems of current domination and ruptures in various environmental and socio-political contexts. What are ways of looking into alternative and embodied practices, centering on intersectionality, and ways of transmitting collective histories and emergent actions beyond the margins? Instead of a stage, we will gather in an intimate setting, forming a circle where our three speaker will discuss how they define 'commoning' within their practice. We will then map out emergent strategies of solidarity, practice, and theory frameworks and harvest insight towards an alternative future revolving around care and collective healing. Our three speakers will guide you through an afternoon where we collectively read and discuss what 'commoning' practices are situated in the local context, in our everyday lives, and as a critical artistic practice. Together, we hope to unravel and further nurture 'commoning' practices by holding space for situated knowledge from marginalised voices to be at the forefront, and form actions of resistance.

Nuraini Juliastuti (ID/NL)

Nuraini Juliastuti is a researcher and maker with a focus on community-based archiving pedagogies as important sites for caring in a self-organised manner. Nuraini is interested in exploring theorising from below and community-based research methodologies as a generative tool to address and confront violent historical legacies in the narratives of knowledge production. Nuraini co-founded a critical thinking space Kunci Study Forum & Collective in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Since 2016, Kunci has established the long-term project School of Improper Education. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Leiden University (2019) and completed a postdoctoral position in the Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation project at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (University of Amsterdam) (2020-2023). Nuraini is a Senior Fellow at the Moving Narratives program at the Prince Claus Fund (Amsterdam) (2026). She works as a senior lecturer at the School of Fine Art, HKU University of the Arts (Utrecht). 

Reza Afisina (ID/NL)

Reza Afisina is a contemporary artist, curator, and arts researcher whose practice engages performance, video, printed matter, and long-term collaborative methodologies. His work investigates social relations, collective knowledge production, and artistic ecosystems, with a sustained focus on community-based practice, alternative pedagogies, and collective governance models.

Afisina is a core member of the Indonesian artist collective ruangrupa based in Jakarta, Indonesia, and served as; Co-collective Curator of Sonsbeek'16 (2016) in Arnhem and Co-Artistic Director of documenta fifteen (2022) in Kassel, Germany. His practice is widely recognized for contributing to experimental exhibition formats, transdisciplinary research, and transnational artistic networks.

Dewi Sofia (PH/NL)

Dewi Sofia is a cultural worker. She holds a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences from Leiden University College, Den Haag and completed her MA in Arts and Culture at Leiden University. 

Her interests are mostly found in the intersections of contemporary culture and politics, working within themes of anti-imperialist resistance, (migrant) labour organising, and gender. As a cultural worker, her experience is in curating, writing, and research, integrating collective processes and justice driven perspectives in her practice. She is also involved in community-based projects which seek to (re)connect members of the diaspora to the history and political realities of Indonesia and the Philippines. Her projects are often centred on the imaginative possibility of reclaiming space and forming South-South connections to shake the ruling world order. 

Timeline

13.00-13.10 Introduction to the Interplay of Commons and Circular Gathering.

13.10-14.00 Speaker Contribution, Short introduction of speakers (15 minutes)

14.00-14.10 Short Break

14.10 - 16.00 Collective Mapping & Writing

16.00 End of program