The Rural Commons Assembly is an emerging trans-local alliance and iterative platform across the Alpine region. Founded in 2021, it brings together more than ten small-scale art and socio-cultural organisations from four countries who are situated in peripheral, mostly rural areas. They all work with and in response to the places they inhabit. Each organisation confronts social, political, economic and ecological complexities through site-specific engagement and fosters cooperative and imaginative livelihood practices on a local scale. The contributing organisations are complemented by individual creative practitioners as well as researchers affiliated with universities in the related regions.
The mission of RCA is to create safer spaces for encounters between contributing organisations and individuals to mobilise situated knowledge, explore each other's diverse practices, learn from first hand experiences and foster new collaborations on the margins. It aims to facilitate mutual empowerment through exchange on both the beauties and hardships of situated cultural work in mountain areas. At the same time, aiming to create wider recognition for contributors and their field of practice both towards local constituencies and regional actors in order to support their site-specific engagement and inspire response-able ways of relating to the land and those that inhabit it.
Doing so, the RCA runs several formal and informal, public and private activities engaging its contributors and the general public. These activities are nomadic annual assemblies, a website and online archive, public workshops, excursions, peer-feedback, shared programming activities and collaborative projects.
During the first assembly in September 2021, the contributing organisations Neuwirt (Wattens, AUT) and Die Bäckerei (Innsbruck, AUT) became places for trans-local networking, learning and mutual empowerment through presentations, discussions, guided tours, convivial activities and a public forum including international guest speakers. After a set-back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which an online assembly was held, contributors of the RCA hosted a public workshop on rural commons as part of the New European Bauhaus of the Mountains at Free University of Bolzano in January 2023. Soon after, a second assembly took place at La Foresta (Rovereto, IT) in March 2023 with the support of CIPRA International. The third assembly happened only a year later, in June 2024 at Somalgors74 (Tschlin, Switzerland) co-hosted by Curdin Tones and Johannes Reisigl with the help of Elena Braida and participating organisations.
In Partnership with
2021 edition funded by
Supported by
Accredited as
The Rural Commons Assembly is an emerging trans-local alliance and iterative platform across the Alpine region. Founded in 2021, it brings together more than ten small-scale art and socio-cultural organisations from four countries who are situated in peripheral, mostly rural areas. They all work with and in response to the places they inhabit. Each organisation confronts social, political, economic and ecological complexities through site-specific engagement and fosters cooperative and imaginative livelihood practices on a local scale. The contributing organisations are complemented by individual creative practitioners as well as researchers affiliated with universities in the related regions.
The mission of RCA is to create safer spaces for encounters between contributing organisations and individuals to mobilise situated knowledge, explore each other's diverse practices, learn from first hand experiences and foster new collaborations on the margins. It aims to facilitate mutual empowerment through exchange on both the beauties and hardships of situated cultural work in mountain areas. At the same time, aiming to create wider recognition for contributors and their field of practice both towards local constituencies and regional actors in order to support their site-specific engagement and inspire response-able ways of relating to the land and those that inhabit it.
Doing so, the RCA runs several formal and informal, public and private activities engaging its contributors and the general public. These activities are nomadic annual assemblies, a website and online archive, public workshops, excursions, peer-feedback, shared programming activities and collaborative projects.
During the first assembly in September 2021, the contributing organisations Neuwirt (Wattens, AUT) and Die Bäckerei (Innsbruck, AUT) became places for trans-local networking, learning and mutual empowerment through presentations, discussions, guided tours, convivial activities and a public forum including international guest speakers. After a set-back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which an online assembly was held, contributors of the RCA hosted a public workshop on rural commons as part of the New European Bauhaus of the Mountains at Free University of Bolzano in January 2023. Soon after, a second assembly took place at La Foresta (Rovereto, IT) in March 2023 with the support of CIPRA International. The third assembly happened only a year later, in June 2024 at Somalgors74 (Tschlin, Switzerland) co-hosted by Curdin Tones and Johannes Reisigl with the help of Elena Braida and participating organisations.
In Partnership with
2021 edition funded by
Supported by
Accredited as