Cultural spaces as shared spaces: Re-tooling the commons

The Contemporary Art Days Summit 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on shared ownership, collective stewardship of resources, and ways of organising that prioritise community resilience over growth. The commons has a long history conceptually and practically, particularly in the Swedish context where forests, grazing lands, and other resources were historically managed as allmänningar — collectively governed commons that depended on shared responsibility and negotiated access. While many of these arrangements have changed over time, they offer important historical precedents for contemporary discussions about collective ownership, stewardship, and democratic governance.

This theme invites the group to discuss what roles culture and the arts can play in prefiguring, enacting and supporting these shifts towards, or as, the commons.

• What does it mean to treat cultural spaces as commons — shared resources held collectively and responsibly?
• What models of shared ownership, resource distribution, and collaborative governance already exist (in the cultural sector or beyond) — and what can we learn from them?
• Why and how is commoning relevant to cultural production and instituting, and what steps can we take in our specific contexts to explore this?

The discussion begins at Hospitalet on 14 October and continues at Rikssalen on 15 October, where participants will further develop the ideas and conversations initiated on the first day.

This thematic discussion picks up on talks begun during the two-year project Nya allmänningar, a collaboration between Skogen, Ställbergs Gruva and Kultivator.