Cooperative infrastructures
Part of Archipelago of Artistic Practices, a Research Summit organised by Jubilee and M HKA. The programme and exhibition are built around Eavatea, a digital infrastructure for mapping research-based and transdisciplinary practices. Archipelago of Artistic Practices take place in conjunction with M HKA’s major exhibition The Geopolitics of Infrastructure and includes the participation of many of its exhibiting artists.
Friday 20/06/2025, 11-18h
Location: MHKA, 6th floor
As an infrastructure of innovation and commoning Eavatea brings production, distribution and financing into novel alignments. The interface generates a continuously growing digital common pool resource, the outcome of an agora of in-person-meetings where artists discuss, make choices and upload individual and collective practices on Eavatea. This co-curating process not only generates collective knowledge, but also gives Eavatea an important social dimension. It transforms a self-organised digital infrastructure into a commoning practice, which generates the commons that needs to be collectively governed to ensure its sustainability and preservation. We question if the cooperative model can offer an economic and governance model that serves the needs of the various stakeholders.
11h / Keynote: The Multi-stakeholder Cooperative and the Dissemination of Eavatea – Johannes Grillet (KCO, Knowledge Centre for Cooperative Entrepreneurship, KU Leuven)
11:30h / Conversation: Johannes Grillet in conversation with Vermeir & Heiremans
12:30h lunch
13:30h / Roundtable Archipelago of Artistic Practices: discussion with members of possible future user groups of Eavatea.
1/Partners that co-produced Eavatea. They could become the first circle of autonomous users: Atelier Cartographique, nadine, f.eks.
2/Possible future user groups from the arts sector:
Artists: Brussels Artist-Run Network, Seasonal Neigbours, SOTA
Art institutions: Kunsthal Gent/Openbare Werken Festival, NICC, CKV, M HKA, Kanal.
3/Possible future user groups from the educational sector: Re-Connect (Iranian online performing arts academy), School of Equals (LUCA).
16h-18h / Vermeir & Heiremans, 7 Walks (Help U Zelven). Starting in the museum, a short walk exploring the cooperative activities in the vicinity of the museum.
Introduction on the keynote presentation:
The Multi-stakeholder Cooperative and the Dissemination of Eavatea
Johannes Grillet
Exploring the dynamics between a co-authored knowledge commons and an economic model that operates on the basis of collective ownership, the cooperative as an organisational form might offer possibilities for the long-term sustainability of Eavatea. The cooperative movement is made up of diverse types of organizations: worker cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, credit unions, and housing cooperatives are all vastly different from each other. Each type of cooperative has strikingly different characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.
Research has shown that a multi-stakeholder cooperative is particularly suitable in a situation involving the production and management of collective goods. MSC governance offers a blueprint for democratic engagement of diverse stakeholders around a common purpose and a common good. Johannes Grillet will question if the multi-stakeholder cooperative model can offer an economic and governance model that serves the needs of all Eavatea stakeholders.
Activation Friday 20 June 2025 – 11h
Johannes Grillet is a scientific collaborator at the Knowledge Centre for Cooperative Entrepreneurship. At the KCO KU Leuven he is active as a researcher and educator, where he keeps in touch with the broader field of cooperatives in Belgium. Previously he worked on citizen participation at Agora.Brussels and on member involvement at NewB.