Inspiration #8: Alchemy of Commons & Abi Tariq
“Aiwen has created a tool for artists and cultural workers to confront the most urgent yet invisible aspects of what it means to work together. Inherently a critique of capitalism, the game reveals how our practices are rooted in spectacle and fame; ideals the art world has borrowed from show business.”
By Abi Tariq, artist and AFIELD Director of Programs.
Stemming from research by Yin Aiwen and Binna Choi—and now developed by Aiwen and Yiren Zhao—Alchemy of Commons (AlCo) is a multi-year research project that has evolved from collaborations with Framer Framed and the Documenta Institute. At its heart, AlCo is a game, a toolkit, an archiving method, and an opportunity for deep reflection on how we work together in a cultural landscape often constrained by funding tick-boxes.
Aiwen is an anomaly in the AFIELD ecosystem: unlike other Peers, she first entered our orbit through an invitation from advisor Binna Choi for an early study program. At first, her research can seem heavily intellectual, but after some time, it reveals the depth of her engagement with communities. Years of case studies have led to a richness of thought that she has nurtured into designing a game and toolkit to help us change how things are usually done in the art world.
AlCo challenges us to prioritize “community affect value” over institutional hangups, reinforcing my long-held belief that “everything starts at home”; that when it comes to ethics, we can do away with the saying about the shoemaker’s own shoes, and lead by example to create a world with healthy internal relationships (and practices), and carry that forward towards partners and collaborators. With AlCo and within her wider practice, Aiwen recognizes that social movements come in waves, but communities are the undercurrents that sustain pressure for change.
As AFIELD moves through its own structural evolution, Aiwen has been directly consulting with our team to assess and improve our organisational health; we have now returned to the AlCo mapping exercise three times—most recently just last week—using it as a baseline for our growth. I often find myself reflecting on feedback from Aiwen, or a thought she provoked, and how it continues to reveal new meaning over time. I encourage cultural workers, artist collectives, and those trying to self-organise in a serious way to study the AlCo website, and get in touch with Aiwen for a session to learn more. May we be better together! x
Yin Aiwen is an artist, designer, researcher, occasional institutional strategist, and AFIELD Peer based in Rotterdam and London. By designing new techno-institutional frameworks around care ethics, her work reconsiders and reimagines our socio-economic, cultural, emotional, and bodily conditions.
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Image: Survival Kits for Artivist Communities, based on Yin Aiwen and Yiren Zhao’s ongoing research Alchemy of Commons, Kassel, Germany, 2023. Photo by Abi Tariq.