Monty

In a world where social safety nets are eroding, self-care is systematically monetized, and efficiency is prioritized over well-being and creativity, our relationships suffer. We see an urgency to understand ourselves as structural beings—inherently shaped by, involved in, and deeply tied to the struggles of others. We feel a desire to redefine self-care through commoning and collectivizing. We propose to reappropriate it as «kin care,» where community, friendship, and family networks become the
foundation for transformation.

How might artistic practices function as healing or as preventive care by increasing support and fostering
community? How can group rituals mobilize our sense of accountability toward one another? How can we build systems of solidarity that both empower individuals lacking access to institutional care services and avoid merely filling gaps that institutions should be responsible for addressing? How might artistic practices help us take responsibility for our collective belonging?

We wish to collaborate with participants of Togethermess to imagine a multiplicity of forms care could take— where justice and rights could be expanded, or love cooperatively practiced.

The aim is to create prototypes for tools, solidarity networks, and support structures for kin care that can be implemented in human relationships, institutions, and collectives.

transformative justice – collective healing rituals – family constellation – conflict mediation skills – listening practices – multidirectional
memory – theater of the oppressed – unselfing – mapping networks of care – commoning wages – creating exchange economies of care –
hosting undocumented people – deconstructing habits of individuation – grief tending – consent culture building

We will begin with the situated knowledge and practices present in the group. Thus, we first dive into practices, concepts, texts, images etc that you as a participant will bring to share and/or investigate collectively. In the second phase, we will begin to create processes, protocols, games, manifestos etc. that support our research on commoning and making kin, as tools that can be used by us, by institutions and communities. We call these two phases input and output. A public moment where we share our practices will close the week.

Please bring to the laboratory an exercise, a text, a practice, a film, an idea for visiting a particular location, a proposal for an encounter with someone outside our workspace, or simply a question. Your input can focus on a very specific aspect of kinship or be broader, helping to sketch a theoretical framework. Alternatively, you can also bring a tool, a method, or something that can support a collective process. We invite you to share for 30 minutes to 2 hours.