Common Lab
Manual for Social Innovation Through Art 
A Goethe-Institut Excellency Initiatives Programme
In partnership with Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki
2020-2021

[ar for social change] [commoning] [post-industrial design] [research] [tools]

ABOUT COMMON LAB 

Common Lab (CoL) is a programme by Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and ArtBOX, in the framework of Goethe-Institut’s Excellency Initiatives 2020. It is implemented in partnership with TIF - Helexpo and Hyperwerk Institut for Postindustrial Design (Basel) which contributes to the research. It is based on the experience gained through Project LABattoir, which started as early as 2015 and was completed at the end of 2019 according to schedule.

Common Lab’s (CoL) mission is to create a Manual for Social Innovation through Art, aiming to empower communities to overcome crisis.

Crisis is perceived through the issues arising from the current social, financial and political conditions, within the post-industrial environment (indicatively: lack of democratic cohesion, impoverishment, youth unemployment, exclusion from decision-making processes, social segregation, the effects of environmental crisis etc.). To address these issues, Common Lab deploys art for social change, post-industrial design and commoning practices; and designs actions, which include non-formal learning across generations; use of tools created through participatory prototyping in post-industrial design (mobile stage, studio and high tech app); activities of research, participatory planning and evaluation at the level of community. Two main target groups are the focus of CoL: communities of space (people of different generations and backgrounds active in a given geographical area - a neighbourhood in crisis) and communities of interest (artists, designers, social activists, researchers).

COMMON LAB RESPONDS TO THE PANDEMIC

The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown imposed by governments to many cities across the globe presented a unique situation, which causes a modification of the initial planning of CoL.

​The restrictions taken to halt the spread of Covid-19 made any kind of social gatherings impossible. The generalised lockdown of cities and the measures of social distancing taken to prevent the spread of the contagious disease, posed, therefore, a question regarding public space and communal life. Besides the arising psychological issues that affect the well-being of people in lockdown, and the newborn economic problems related to the suspension of work and consumption, the epidemic has enforced upon us a biopolitical crisis of democracy. The administration of life and a locality's populations, which both medicalises and intervenes into private and public life, can be seen as a potential threat to democratic cohesion that potentially challenges the very existence of open societies.

For this reason, crisis as perceived by CoL is redefined within the social parameters defined by the administration of the pandemic. Since governmental plans for the gradual lifting of imposed restrictions is assessed and updated based on the daily epidemiological data, possible lockdowns remain an option, with which we will have to live with in the future. 

Empowering communities to overcome systemic inequality, poverty, social segregation, and discrimination – issues that existed long before the virus, and which are now being cracked open for all to see – remain the main target of CoL. However, communities are not seen only as localities, but as global networks of people scattered around the world and affected to a more or less same degree by the pandemic.

COMMON LAB ADAPTS TO THE PANDEMIC

​In response therefore to the urgent circumstances, CoL adapts its approach.
​We address open calls for participation to various people in different cities around the world, thus forming a community of interested individuals that want to work together. Through artistic means, they find ways to counteract the psychological and social effects brought about by the continuing need for containment-actions and the social, cultural, and economic consequences.

​Online events and workshops organised by CoL are designed to empower actors and stakeholders to shape specific objectives that will affect and possibly enhance and improve their immediate personal and social life. The physical presence of the participants is replaced by their online presence. Events and workshops organised by CoL to adapt to the new condition and are re-designed both in terms of content and format. CoL’s studio for audio-visual productions related to the content of the research is supported by cloud platform applications for video and audio conferencing and webinars. These modifications open up the project to novel possibilities, challenges, and changes, making it even more clear that crisis doesn’t affect only the life of a local community, but an interdependent global network of various agents from different communities, places, and with different goals.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

​CoL’s research is based on the joint implementation of Theory of Change (ToC) and Social Reporting Standards (SRS). The combination of the two is a new methodology for the research, practice and evaluation in the cultural and social sectors.

MANUAL FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION THROUGH ART

​CoL’s actions and research feed into the creation of a Manual for Social Innovation through Art which offers the methodology to communities to create their own, sustainable solutions to identified problems through a collective experience of learning and doing. CoL’s Manual includes case-studies and exemplary prototypes / tools, that ensure the model’s adaptability and scalability. It is addressed to artists, creatives, institutions and citizens initiatives. CoL’s Manual is highly adaptable to fit the needs of various communities on a local, national and transnational level, offering highly transferable skills and abilities that strengthen civil society.
Thessaloniki
2020-2021

​A Goethe-Institut Excellency Initiatives project 

Organization-Implementation:
Goethe-Institut Excellence Initiatives 2020

General Director: Rudolf Bartsch (Director, Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki)
General Coordination: Aris Kalogiros (Head of Cultural Department, Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki)
Coordination for TIF - HELEXPO: Vicky Dalkrani (Director, Institute for Exhibition Research), Dimitris Kourkouridis (Researcher, IER)

Partner Institutions:
Hyperwerk Institute for Postindustrial Design - Basel
Freiraum Platform

Concept, Coordination: ArtBOX.gr
Artistic Director: Christos Savvidis (ArtBOX.gr)
Curator: Lydia Chatziiakovou (ArtBOX.gr)
Scientific Advisor: Sotirios Bachtsetzis (ArtBOX.gr)

Research:
​Max Spielmann - Rainer Rosegger (Hyperwerk Institute for Postindustrial Design), Kalliope Kati (anthropogeographer - March-July 2020)

Mobile studio consultant / coordinator: George Kogias

COMMON LAB ACTIVITIES

HOW TO WORKSHOP SERIES
​launched in March 2020

How to build a community in 10 days 
​with artist ​Elli Chrysidou
29/04-19/062020

​A workshop-platform towards the creation of an online community, joined by the common experience of our current de facto long-term self-confinement, seen as a multifaceted opportunity to discover a deeper relationship with others and to prepare for the day after.
​Due to the large number of interested participants, the workshop takes place in three cycles.
​

How to break and rebuild your mug in ten days
with architect Lina Mantikou
2-12/06/2020

​An online international workshop on designing a better life at home and beyond. Using digital tools and actual gestures, workshop participants redesign their favourite -idiosyncratic- objects, learning a new method of design.

STATE OF THE ARTS
​launched in June 2020

State of the Arts explores the issues in regards to the ways of production, presentation and reception of contemporary art, which have emerged because of the global financial and social crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
​

State of the Arts - Discussion #1
30 June 2020

State of the Arts invites artists, theorists, critics, curators, policy makers and other stakeholders to engage in a video discussion by delivering video statements on the above issues, which form an online archive. Selected views of the contributors form a report, which sets up a discussion agenda. 
​

State of the Arts - Online Conference
1 November 2020
In collaboration with Freiraum Festival & Summit by Goethe-Institut

In a second stage, experts are invited to participate in a global, online live-stream conference and discuss these issues. The format of the conference combines video conferencing and the physical presence of participants in various locations/cities. Public attending the conference live, as well as public worldwide attending via live-streaming is able to contribute to the discussion.

Can the art world reflect an inclusive attitude in its aims without pretending to be all things to all people?  Can we give political life to the notions of the precarious art worker, the inclusive audience, and critical ephemeral art for social change?
​
Topics & Speakers

REMEDIATION & DIGITISATION
Helgard Haug (Author and director. Co-founder of Rimini Protokoll)
Daria Mille (Curator at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe)
Ben Vickers (Chief Technology Officer, Serpentine Galleries)

AUTHOR / CREATOR, ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIES, PRECARIOUS LABOUR FUNCTIONS
Julieta Aranda (artist, co-director of e-flux)
Gregory Sholette (artist, writer, activist and teacher)

COMMONING
Mark Beasley (curator and curatorial director, Pace Gallery, New York)
Eric Ellingsen (Landscape Urbanist and Artist)
Mark Titchner (artist)

INSTITUTIONS
Ash Bulayev (Director of Onassis AiR & independent curator)
Thomas Oberender (Director of Berliner Festspiele, Artistic Director of Martin Gropius Bau - Immersion Programme)

Moderators: Sotirios Bahtsetzis (art theorist, curator, scientific advisor of Common Lab, Research Director of ArtBOX.gr), with Christos Savvidis (artistic director of Common Lab and founding director, ArtBOX.gr) and Lydia Chatziiakovou (curator of Common Lab, Co-Director of ArtBOX.gr)
​