CS:G Catablog Introduction

Common Space: Gallery provided a platform for development of Common Spaces between and within ‘artists’ and ‘civilians’, founded on ideas of engagement, mutual reflection, disagreement and transgression which, although shot through with uncertainty, have a climate of a-fear.

These common spaces reject atomization and categorization in society, giving us new opportunities to approach each other, comfortable in our identities but allowing us to transcend these through genuine interaction with others. 

There are no pre-determined outcomes in Common Spaces, rather they are spaces of possibility where the unusual interactions that take place and the debased settings they take place in are platforms for new creativity through solidarity and mutuality.

Common Space: Gallery operated in a parasitic-domestic mode, temporarily colonizing ‘catalyzing spaces’ in bedrooms, hallways, kitchens and calling into question their assumed and assigned psycho-geography. This facilitated a changed topography of understanding and perception which initiated a different and altogether less defined experience than in a formal gallery setting. The inbuilt prejudice of the viewer – creation relationship is reduced. 

Equally, the domestic settings emphasized our solidarity with contemporary artists around the world, particularly in the post-socialist world, who have seen their access to gallery spaces reduced as the art scene has become increasingly marketised and “art” has come to mean - and be popularly understood as - producing decoration for the houses, cathedrals and lives of the rich and (in)famous.

This catablog is an archeology of common traces. 
Please look at the post 'Common Spaces in Time' to read more about our hinterland and join us as we go forth and strike new ground.