In late March, 2026 students from across disciplines – architecture, fine arts, urban studies, interior design, craft studies, sculpture, and contemporary art – gathered at MASSIA in southwestern Estonia for a week-long workshop on the commons: land, knowledge, and practice.
MASSIA, a self-organised residency rooted in collective care and autonomy, became both the setting and subject of our inquiry. The workshop offered space not only for theoretical engagement – with lectures, readings, and discussions exploring the politics and practices of commoning – but also for practicing it through the daily upkeep of MASSIA. Moving at a slower pace, we cultivated attentiveness to shared spaces, responsibilities, and relations.
Alongside discussions and field sessions, participants engaged in gardening, planting, and grafting activities. Collective cooking, fermenting, and shared meals further opened conversations around food, maintenance, and social reproduction as everyday practices of commoning. Rather than treating the commons as a fixed object of study, the week approached commoning as a situated, ongoing process – where knowledge is not only co-created through practice and care, but also questioned in terms of whose knowledge counts, and how alternative forms of knowing might shape more just futures.
Workshop instructors: Agata Marzecova, Sean Tyler.
The workshop was supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
