COMMON GROUND, curators: Tim Etchells, Marta Keil, Grzegorz Reske
In 2020, the curators of the residency program invited male and female artists to talk about under what conditions it is possible today to establish the space of the common. The artists looked at the ways in which we negotiate shared spaces, and asked questions about who actually owns the common ground? Who sets its framework and draws its boundaries? With whom do we enter into discussions and set rules? Who do we never let in here?
On May 8, 2020, we were supposed to solemnly launch the public presentations, but a pandemic – lockdown – forced us to temporarily change our plans: since entry is temporarily forbidden on Emilia Plater, we invited you to #terenwspólny – a series of trailers of Komuna Warszawa.
Idiom: Common ground
An area marked out on a map or delineated by daily trodden paths running down the middle of the lawn. Precisely fenced or under constant negotiation. With whom do you enter into conversation and set rules? What keeps you together? Who will you never let in here?
Common ground: an area you co-create and care for every day; an area of free movement – provided you know the rules. It’s a space you identify with or can’t look at. It’s a refuge and a privilege. Who does it actually belong to? Who sets its framework and draws its boundaries?
A common area, a shared area, a refuge. Underground.
“Common ground” here can be understood as a specific piece of public space, as a language, as a working method, as a refuge. It refers both to the conventionally established framework of the community and to the various dimensions of what is possible to perceive and feel together: to sounds, but also to the weather – commonly felt, transformed in recent years from the subject of casual conversations with acquaintances into the prospect of real danger and into a particularly important topic of political disputes.
“Common ground” is at the same time this area, which in March 2020 rapidly shrank to porous surfaces separating private from public space: windows, balconies, car doors.
Public space became a threat, social interactions were linked to the risk of contracting a yet unrecognized disease. The Covid-19 pandemic instantly materialized boundaries that had remained invisible to some of us: redrawn boundary lines of countries, parks, playgrounds, forests, public transportation or one’s own staircase severely altered the accessibility of the common. On top of this, privileges – such as those associated with free access to a computer screen – have been updated again and mercilessly. Instead, fear for the future and the radical deterioration of living conditions have become widely available and shared.
During the pandemic period, all places where it becomes real to feel for the other person and where one can directly show support and solidarity to each other have become a threat. Perhaps for a while the common areas will be open only to a select few – to those who have acquired viral immunity. Perhaps in a while the assumptions of biopolitics will be realized in this spotty way: in the selection into the healthy and the sick, into the immunized and those exposed to the risk of infection, into those who regain freedom of movement and those who remain in the risk group and in their own four walls. It may be that everything we knew about negotiating shared space will have to be put on hold, and the rules of shared functioning will have to be invented completely anew. It is likely that many of the places where we usually liked to gather will cease to exist.
All the Things That Could Happen Next
As part of his residency, Tim Etchells created the neon sign “All the Things That Could Happen Next”, which has been located at the intersection of Emilia Plater and Nowogrodzka streets in Warsaw.
In this work, the artist reaches out to future possibilities manifested in various contexts and at different scales. He poses the question of the future in the context of both small and large events; on the one hand personal and intimate, on the other – taking on the scale of society-wide changes. Perhaps what neon reveals particularly clearly is the uncertainty of the future and the fragility of what seems permanent to us – both in our personal and social lives. After all, none of us know what will happen next. By pointing this out and emphasizing the diversity and uncertainty of future possibilities, Etchells makes us think about our own agency in shaping future events.
Using simple sentences written with neon, LED lights and other techniques, Etchells seeks to create miniature narratives; moments of confusion, wonder, reflection and intimacy in public and gallery spaces. Encountering neon signs conceived in this way – whether on the street or in the white cube of a gallery – viewers are drawn into a situation that is not entirely clear, a linguistic event that breaks out of routine, creates confusion, is ambiguous. As in Etchells’ other works, the missing parts of the neon image are as important as those that make it up. Evoking a story or an out-of-context idea, the neon invites us to wander together, but without revealing where it leads.