We find ourselves in the midst of multiple seismic shifts. Environmental conditions are destabilising human and non-human systems. Transformative technologies are driving a phase transition in information processing, potentially sidelining humans from meaningful social and creative roles, as well as economic agency. War and militarisation are flooding into the cracks of the post-Second World War global order, straining its relevance and efficacy. Despite the accelerated economic growth in the last seventy years, an ever-expanding wealth gap fuels suffering and violence.

Across these diverse and complex predicaments, current structures of ownership play a critical role in granting the power to dominate, extract and speculate. Modern societies have typically tried to address this by entrusting the state to tame the powers of ownership through regulations and taxes. Yet, globally and locally, capital is finding ever more ways of eroding and avoiding those limits – demonstrating the need to trial models that limit the powers of ownership and help societies to supersede it as an institution in creative new ways.

Apart from privileged agency and control, ownership also implies responsibility. While democratic societies may no longer be capable of containing the Leviathans they created, they may yet edit their DNA––reorienting them at the level of the source code. Conventional ownership reflects not only the feudal idea of dominion, but also the enlightenment-era procedure of classification and boundary-drawing around objectified ‘assets’. By contrast, indigenous or pre-modern ways of thinking about responsibility, stewardship, and commoning offer more interdependent responsibility models. Could these inform workable alternatives to today’s unidirectional and ‘exclusive’ models of ownership?

Art and culture have always been instrumental in shaping narratives and norms, both in support of and in rejection of power. As a result, they offer a unique possibility for intervening into the structures of ownership in experimental ways. By refocusing on art as a relational structure rather than a form of capital––a complex of mutual obligations, rather than a fixed asset––we might unlearn our habits of approaching the world through a speculative lens and develop systems that emphasise interdependence through responsibility. Specifically, we hope to develop new protocols for creating and sharing value in artistic and cultural production that can serve as an inspiration for broader societal application.

Beyond Cultures of Ownership builds on momentum in multiple areas of contemporary thinking to explore the role of the arts alongside wider economic, philosophical, and activist efforts to reconfigure the legal, cultural, and ethical assumptions that underpin ownership. Only from there can we build levers for rebalancing our relationships with technology, the planet, and one another.