The concept of Repository of the Undercommons (RotU) comes from many places, pleasures + pains. thoughts (un)spoken, whispers, theories + shouts of joy/rage. It comes from all of us + us all. from our repositories.
Since the covid-19 crisis took hold, RotU are pursuing (en)countering crisis + re:making futures; a collective/community orientated programme designed to put people into contact with art, creating + making, alongside the practice of liberation + building practical solidarity with today’s struggles. RotU + (en)countering crisis + re:making futures is led in collaboration with curator + writer, layla-roxanne hill + nosheen khwaja, chris manson, fadzai mwakutuya, nalini paul, jamie temple + verbena blue collective as the current cohort of artists.
(en)countering crisis + re:making futures is about shaking up our understanding of the present + the past, creating opportunities to make, create + generate new vocabularies of social organisation + build better ways to create + live together.
A collective response
As artists, we are also workers, constrained by systems over which we have little to no control, however, we can (and should) make political work (or work informed by politics).
RotU are currently forming as a network of anti-capitalist, degrowth, decolonial artists, for “mutual assistance; to promote work; to share ideas for anti-capitalist strategies in contemporary art; to cultivate the working-class audience for such art; to counter the echoes of post-modern cynicism; and to build practical solidarity with today’s struggles.” – November Network of Anti-Capitalist Visual and Studio Artists
Office of Neglected Opportunities
As part of forming as a collective of anti-capitalist, degrowth + decolonial artists we will be creating the Office of Neglected Opportunities, to establish a community space, promoting a making + growing commons + cultures. this space + when this could be undertaken remains dependent on covid-19 related movement restrictions.
Within the co-operative maker/resource/community space, we will create + share materials accessible to most people – making work accessible across multiple platforms (both online + offline), conduct community workshops to demystify + share processes so that others may take up cultural production + utilise our artistic practice + production to make visible cooperative/community/alternative ways of knowing/living which (have always) exist(ed).
Our current + upcoming projects (focussed on who is excluded from creativity + why) adopt a curatorial activism, critical, healing, intersectional + community approach.