The aesthetics of the commons

What does the commons look like? What color is the commons? What kind of feeling do illustrations of the commons convey? There is certainly an aesthetics of the commons (or even multiple asthetics) and I have really no idea what they are composed of. But if people try to illustrate the commons (what mostly doesn’t work),  I can inmediatly connect to or not. I can intuitevly say: that’s it!

Recently Hey Monkey Riot, aka Eddy Baldry, an award winning radical illustrator based in London and Paris, did a remix of illustrations of the commons. And…. I love them.

Here he explains what it was for:

„Some illustrations I did at the end of 2013 for an article for the latest issue of STIR

written by Silke Helfrich (https://twitter.com/Commonify) about the recent events in the movement to defend commons (space/ ideas/ resources that are held in common for everyone). …. It was a fun little project.“

I’ll publish the timeline with Hey Monkey Riot’s illustrations on this blog. But to start, here is a double page illustration for the same magazine about the same issue, concretely

„land held in common for everyone, rather than just landowners. … The illustration looks at how all the difference pieces of the land are connected and that damage to one part of the system will lead to damage to all of it“, says the artist.

Ah, and by the way: you can order the Winter Issue of Stir Magazine here for £2.95,  with thrilling content as for instance:

• Ending the Hypnosis of Normality: Stories Dying to be Told by Smartmeme Studio’s James John Bell

• Shared Assets: A 21st Century Commons by founder Mark Walton

• Interview with commons activist and advocate David Bollier (author and co-editor of Wealth of the Commons)

• Owenstown: A New Co-operative Town by Project Director Bill Nicol

• Permablitz: Permaculture-inspired garden makeovers to create more local food growing spaces, organized by the recently formed Permablitz London by Susannah Hall

•  15 Years Since Napster: What Have We learned? by musician and author Mat Callahan

•  Co-operative Architecture by the Cave Co-op founders Vera Hale and Liz Crisp

•  A review of Ivan Illich’s recently republished Beyond Economics and Ecology by commoner and Dark Mountain co-founder Dougald Hine