ISSUES 2025: Exquisite Commons
ISSUES is the annual, peer-led publication that serves as the milestone public offering for each School of Commons * (SoC) program cycle.
ISSUES collates and contextualises the processes, practices, and methodologies of each participating project within SoC. Each project is invited to contribute to ISSUES in a form and style that is both reflective of, and complementary to, their own ways and workings. As such, experimentation and the re-working of traditional publishing modes are always encouraged.
Moreover, for each edition of ISSUES, the SoC Cohort collaboratively develops a collective framing that brings together the thematic threads and working methods they have both individually and collectively explored and developed during their 10-month peer-learning journey.
Each Edition of ISSUES is also typically coupled with a Collective Editorial developed by the SoC team in collaboration with the Cohort which adds further layers of contextualisation to the programme and outputs of each SoC offering.
However, for the 2025 edition of ISSUES, the SoC Cohort brought their theme of ‘Exquisite Commons’ to life by taking the foundations of the ISSUES structure and bringing it into an entirely new process of self organisation.
This evolution of a previously linear practice has produced new connective pathways between the collective theme and individual project contributions, as well as for the publication itself. Which, for the very first time, will now live as a digital, broadcast, and print format.
Traces of this Exquisition Commons approach can be found throughout the publication, mostly obviously in the scrapping of the aforementioned Collective Editorial for the Metafesto: ‘Making a Vessel in the Sky’, and the bridge prompts that you will notice accompanying each text, that draw a poetic line not only between each individual contribution and the collective theme, but to its entangled clan of fellow contributions, too.
A huge and heartfelt appreciation goes to the entire School of Commons 2025 cohort for the dedication they have placed into the contributions of this publication, and to the SoC Issues Steering Committee: Belén, Chantelle, Klara, Lou, and Layla, without whom this physical publication, and its broadcast companion, would not exist.
----- Amy Gowen, ISSUES Editor
You can purchase your copy here:
humdrumpress.com/exquisite-commons
ISBN/EAN: 9789083423159
This publication is a collaboration between the School of Commons and HumDrumPress.
HumDrumPress is a collaboration-based publisher.
Roles and responsibilities are therefore shared by all parties, within their capacities. The following persons contributed in a multitude of ways to making this publication possible: Alejandro Vasquez Salinas, Alisa Probylova, Alyssa Moxley, Aziza Gorgi, Belén Arellano Cañizares, Brigitte Hart, caro bodensteiner, Cyrine Ghrissi, El puente_lab, Emily Sarsam, Gal Sherizly, Georgia Leigh-Münster, Giuliana Marmo, Guillermo Martinez de Velasco, Hannah Kemp-Welch, Jagna Nawrocka, Jere Ikongio, Jojo Vávra, Juan Sandoval, Kateryna Vavrynchuk, Klara Branting Paulsell, Layla Fassa, Liliana Scapucci, Lou Croff Blake, Madelyn Byrd, Maria Papadomanolaki, Mariangela Aponte Núñez, Mary Sarsam, Nora Sobbe, Oleksandra Tsapko, Pustynia Błedowska, Sara Bouzgarrou, Stefan Ralevic, Ula Liagaitė, Xtina Ariaz, Yue Wu, Yusuf Orhan
Paper: recycled Typeface: Instrument Serif, Opensource font designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Jordan Egstad Printed by: We Make It. Malplaquetstr 17 - 13347 Berlin Print run: 210 copies
Design by: Lou Croff Blake and Belén Arellano Cañizares © 2025 SoC Cohort members and SoC team, 2026
Copyleft, 2026, Authors: This is a free work, you can copy, distribute, and modify it under the terms of the Free Art
An open-access version of the publication is available via the following link: https://humdrumpress.com/exquisite-commons
License Artlibre
HumDrumPress approaches publishing as an expanded practice and works with a purpose-built commons-based publishing model for creating all of our publications. In our publishing model we have revised each stage in the traditional publishing cycle to make our processes as communal, open-access, and multivocal as possible. We work with methods such as open book events, collective editing, collaborative design, logbooks, and open-access publishing, and are committed to activating the knowledge contained in a publication far before and long after it takes on material form.
To find out more about our processes you can access our publishing manifesto and manual and open-access publications (and more) at humdrumpress.com
ISSUES is the annual, collective publication of School of Commons.
All editions of ISSUES to date can be accessed digitally at: www.schoolofcommons.org/making-public/issues.
Previous editions include:
ISSUES 2020: Learning together, whilst doing apart
ISSUES 2021: Harvesting
ISSUES 2022: The (Un)Learner
ISSUES 2023: On Mutual Support
ISSUES 2024: Embracing Chaos
Broadcast Publication
With contributions by: Layla Fassa, Klara Branting Paulsell, Shortwave Collective, Nora Sobbe, AWOL, Oleksandra Tsapko, Alisa Probylova, Kateryna Vavrynchuk, caro bodensteiner, Ula Liagaitė, Yue Wu
Special thanks to Layla Fassa for her thoughtful editing of this piece, and to Klara Branting Paulsell for lending her voice to the voiceovers.
The full recording (41 mins) and digital publication are available via our website: schoolofcommons.org/making-public/issues/2025.
