Based on the results, dialogues and materials collected from the workshop, I developed a two part poster series titled ‘A Map to The Future of Creative Pursuit.’
First: I used each individuals’ manifestos and their notes from the dialogues prompted by excerpts from my publication, ‘A Condition That We Cannot Escape: Dialogues on the State of Creative Labour Under Crisis Capitalism,’ to develop a collective manifesto for The Common Room.
Second: I used each person’s ‘Present – Future Graph’ to plot the trajectory of the hopes and fears for future of creative pursuit.
I chose to continue working with text as a diagrammatic form to reflect the collaboration, complexity and reflective exchange that took place during the collective discussion at The Common Room Workshop.
In the publication the diagrammatic cadence matched the flow of dialogue between two people; whereas the manifesto and the plot are born out of a collective conversation that holds a multiplicity of voices. Also reflected in the choice to use layered Risograph printing techniques.
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The workshop helped me think about this project beyond the publication and dialogue; I now see The Common Room as a starting point to build a community around.
The Common Room is a refuge from A Condition That We Cannot Escape. A condition of polycrisis under exploitative capitalism.
Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own, The Common Room aims to reshape our understanding of the barriers we face in pursuing sustainable creative work as not just being our own – but as systemic issues we face collectively.
Below is a text excerpt of the full manifesto that lays out the guiding principles and purpose of The Common Room.
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- the purpose OF The Common Room IS To create space, build community, initiate dialogues and make demands that can allow us to take control of OUR FUTURES and shape the conditions of CREATIVE LABOUR UNDER CAPITALISM IN POLYCRISIS.
- THE COMMON ROOM IS A COLLECTIVE METAPHORICAL SPACE: IT CAN TAKE MANY SHAPES AND FORMS. THE PURPOSE OF ITS SHAPE IS ONE that can unify us as a community of creative WORKERS AND THINKERS with common interestS.
- THE COMMON ROOM AIMS TO BUILD frameworks and STRATEGIES that enable us to imagine and demand economically, psychologically, ecologically and creatively sustainable MODES OF WORKING.
- WHILE IT MAY inevitably BE NECESSARY TO WORK WITH OR WITHIN THE LIMITS OF EXISTING institutions, SYSTEMS AND POWERS THAT BE; THE COMMON ROOM hopes to PUSH beyond the constraints of the failures of SUCH OPPRESSIVE systems of power THROUGH CRITIQUE, DIALOGUE AND IMAGINATION.
- THE ETERNAL GOAL, HOWEVER, IS not TO seek PLAIN reform of existing bodies, but TO DEVELOP an active method to REVEAL new MODES of operating. THAT IS, TO build a totally different system of creatIVE LABOUR AND PRODUCTION.
- USE THE COMMON ROOM AS A SPACE TO QUESTION EXPLOITATIVE AND OPPRESSIVE SYSTEMS. WE SEEK PATHWAYS TOWARS LIBERATION.
- THE COMMON ROOM CELEBRATES GAPS, UNCERTAINTIES AND UNKNOWNS. GAPS ARE ESSENTIAL FOR IMAGINATION. THEY ARE SPACES TO BE FILLED.
- THE COMMON ROOM AIMS TO FOSTER A COMMUNITY OF MUTUAL SUPPORT. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR GATEKEEPING. ALL KNOWLEDGE IS SHARED FREELY IN THIS SPACE.
- BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMON ROOM ARE ALWAYS SHIFTING. ITS IS A SPACE FOR PERPETUAL CONTINUITY, CHANGE AND REINVENTION.
- ONLY IN COMMUNAL DIALOGUE CAN WE RECOGNISE THE PROBLEMS WE FACE AS NOT JUST OUR OWN, BUT AS RELATIONAL TO SYSTEMIC FAILURES. THE COMMON ROOM ENCOURAGES DEEP REFLECTION AND MUTUAL EXCHANGE THAT MAY ALLOW US TO ABANDON THE LONELY PUSUIT OF INDIVIDUAL ACTION IN EXCHANGE FOR A COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS.
- AS THE BARRIERS TO CREATIVE PURSUIT GET STEEPER, THE COMMON ROOM AIMS TO UPLIFT THE VOICES OF THOSE WHO STRUGGLE WITH ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AND OPPORTUNITY.
- PRODUCTIVITY DOES NOT COME FROM STRUGGLE . CREATIVE WORK REQUIRES SUPPORTIVE SYSTEMS AND CONDITIONS THAT ALLOW FOR productivity WITHOUT BURNOUT.
- THE COMMON ROOM DEMANDS A FUTURE WHERE WE ARE NOT SACRIFICING OUR MENTAL WELLBEING TO MEET OUR MOST BASIC MATERIAL NEEDS.
- THE COMMON ROOM BELIEVES THAT FINANCIAL SECURITY IS NOT A LUXURY. NO MORE WORKER EXPLOITATION, UNPAID WORK, LOW WAGES AND UNFAIR FEES.
- AS TRADITIONAL CREATIVE JOBS AND CAREERS DISAPPEAR. AND PEOPLE ENGAGE IN A MIX OF BOTH FREELANCE AND EMPLOYED WORK, THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE SUPPORT FOR THOSE ENGAGING IN SUCH FLUID MODES OF WORK. INSTABILITY CANNOT BECOME THE NORM FOR CREATIVE WORKERS.
- THE COMMON ROOM SEES AI AS A TOOL TO ENHANCE, NOT REPLACE, HUMAN COGNITION. APPLICATIONS OF AI MUST PROTECT THE NEEDS AND RIGHTS OF PEOPLE OVER PROFIT.
- THE COMMON ROOM DOES NOT BELIEVE THAT EVERY CREATIVE AND CRITICAL ENDEAVOUR NEEDS A CLEAR PATH TOWARDS RESOLUTION. ENGAGING SOLELY with questions where the path to resolution can be preemptively laid out REQUIRES THAT WE ONLY DEAL WITH THAT WHICH CAN immediately BE solved. THERE IS NOTHING WORSE THAN ENDING UP WITH A CULTURE THAT ONLY FOCUSSES ON PROBLEMS THAT ARE EASY TO SOLVE.
- AT ITS CORE, THE COMMON ROOM TREATS CREATIVE EXPRESSION AS THE ESSENCE OF BEING ALIVE.