This short account is focused on the curatorial, economic and organisational experimentation that unfolded during the documenta fifteen. Ruangrupa and ca. 1600 of d15 participants offered a practical alternative to mainstream artistic economies. Instead of reproducing market-oriented art world, based on the limitation of access, they tested interdependent, assemblies-driven, commons-based models of organisation. Lumbungs, nonkrong, majelis, and harvests (referring to the glossary proposed by ruangrupa) transform artistic practice in accordance with such values as equity, solidarity and mutual support (principles of community economies), in respect to social and planetary boundaries (as advocated by the proponents of doughnut economy). It is striking that when ruangrupa and extended lumbung participants try to reappropriate the resources and visibility offered by documenta fifteen as part of artistic commons, they are accused of naivete, do-gooding, and dependence on the Western funding. Purism serves here as a mode of dismissal.
We are advocating for recognizing the importance of these practical experiments as participants in the extended lumbung, to which the Rural School of Economies1 contributed (RSoE, set up by Wapke Fenestra and Kathrin Böhm from Myvillages2). RSoE stands in connection to the Community Economies Research Network (CERN)3, dedicated to fostering non-capitalocentric economies worldwide through action research and practice. The work of CERN regularly deals with the allegations of inefficiency (because of scale) and imperfection (because of practical limitations). This rhetoric is a core tenet of the capitalist realism, that belittles any alternative to the existing (art) world order, by overstressing minor flaws of non-capitalocentric economies. At the same time, capitalist realists excel in cynicism, naturalising major flaws of capitalism, such as extractivism, colonialism and exploitation. What adheres to the economy at large is reproduced in the context of contemporary art. Mishandling, corruption, and behind-the-scene machinations, endemic to the gallery-exhibition nexus, are justified as if they were part of the natural, i.e. inevitable order of things. For example, it is ‘obvious’ that major art events are platforms for enhancing visibility of the blue-chip gallery artists, and that profits from this operation are privatized. Any alternatives, such as the one offered by ruangrupa, are accused of messiness and imperfections, in order to delegitimize them.
True indeed, practice is not ideal, and yet it is the only way to implement and test alternative modes of organizing both art and economy. To offer an insight into the daily operations of lumbung, let us refer to the practice of RSoE in Kassel, that partook in the Composting Knowledge Group and had permanent spaces in two of the d15 exhibition venues (Hafenstrasse and Hübner Areal in lumbung Kiosk), to make and present work with local partners who all successfully sustain so called alternative economies. RSoE worked amongst others with the Upländer Bauernmolkerei (milk producer cooperative in Hessia), Frauentreff Brückenhof (women run community hub) and Kommune Niederkaufungen (operating on the common pot principle). Importantly, all local partners were excited and felt valued as collectives and collectivised economies when rurangrupa was announced as curators of d15. The curatorial philosophy and practice of ruangrupa mirrored the knowledge, practical know-how, and systems of values of the collectives RSoE worked with, corroborating their importance.
This recognition was not ‘merely’ symbolic. RSoE wanted to understand how these localised economies - mainly run by women – operate. The motto of the RSoE was “Drawing is the new Accounting”, a tongue-in-cheek argument for collective drawing as a mean of self-reflection and public communication. RSoE quickly identified structural analogies between lumbung and other practices of commoning such as the collective pot at Kommune Niederkaufungen (established in 1986). All members of the commune contribute their wealth and income to one pot, from where everyone draws in accordance with their needs. Of course, it is not an ideal, and conflict free society in a nutshell, but they have managed external (capitalist) and internal (social) pressures and sustained a common pot in the long-term. Niederkaufungen is just one of many examples of the practical implementation of more-than-capitalism economic ideas. It is striking that such ‘radical’ concepts can work in the context of ‘regular’ economies, but when very similar models – such as lumbung – are applied to the field of contemporary art, which likes to perceive itself as a cradle of progressive thinking, they are debased as naïve.
Lumbung as social principle operates on the economy of generosity, trust and time. As members of the extended lumbung, the RSoE was provided with space and endorsements, used to access other sources of funding, without direct financial support from documenta fifteen. RSoE agreed to such conditions because it had a previous experience of operating in commons-based networks, where exchanges are often non-monetary. Myvillages knew ruangrupa as a collective operating in similar ways, the contact was established by Wapke Fenestra who had worked with ruangrupa in the past. That is how trust is established – by doing things together for a common purpose. This includes giving time, giving attention, giving trust, being more than a visitor, more than a guest, being together. As somebody quipped: paying attention is the biggest gift, especially in the context of neoliberal art worlds, where attention is scarce and often monetized.
‘Make friends not art’, the motto of ruangrupa, should be understood as an expression of this fundamental generosity and trust-based interdependency. Such events as documenta fifteen, rather than being limited by the narrow conventions of the gallery-exhibition nexus, serve as springboards for future multi-local action, activating some of their hidden potentials to engender new and reinforce old alliances. The 100 days of Kassel-lumbung were from the very onset conceived by ruangrupa as ‘only’ a beginning, and money provided to artists and collectives was called ‘seed funding’ (rather than fees). These seeds sawn in Kassel enable a new expanded global ecosystem of lumbung, a complex, interdependent network that aims at establishing non-extractive, circular economies of art – where communities of art producers and users reinvest their resources to the common benefit. Lumbung will continue.
1 https://www.ruralschoolofeconomics.info/
2 https://www.myvillages.org/; our practical insights are also reflected by the Centre for Plausible Economies (CPE, established by Kathrin Böhm and Kuba Szreder), a para-institutional research cluster based at Company Drinks in London that focuses on (re)drawing economic systems, in the arts and beyond (https://www.communityeconomies.org/).
3 https://www.communityeconomies.org/about/ce-research-network-cern