The Ground of Things

Theatre Arsenaal/Lazarus and municipal museum Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen (Belgium) started in 2019 a project called ‘The Ground of Things’ (De Grond der Dingen). The goal was to address inequality by claiming one square metre of ground for each inhabitant of Mechelen. Research had learned that the main cause of socio-economic inequality has less to do with income than with inheritance. To everyone’s surprise, the city administration quickly took a liking to the project and immediately made 20,000 square metres available. This started a commoning dynamics in which all residents were invited to come up with ideas for (re)designing the urban space. In this project the people of Mechelen had the lead. They were sketching the future image of the city. Arsenaal/Lazarus and the museum collected proposals, brought ideas and people behind them together, organized negotiations, meetings, and debates to discuss the plans, and they provided a large underground park, an exhibition designed by scenographer Jozef Wouters and Barry Ahmad Talib. In this ‘Neverending Park’ the eighty proposals that were selected after a deliberative day of negotiation were exhibited. Each idea was visualized in a scale model, made by artist Benjamin Verdonck.

More about this case study can be read in the chapter Commoning art as political companion. On the issue of participatory democracy, by Hanka Otte and Pascal Gielen, published in: Félix Dupin-Meynard & Emmanuel Négrier (eds.) Cultural Policies in Europe: A Participatory Turn?, Éditions de l’Attribut, p. 141-154.