PhD defence: Sophia Charlotte Rose Jerram (IGN)

Sophia Charlotte Rose Jerram is defending her thesis:
Spatial commoning in Aotearoa New Zealand – Curating inclusive spaces

Supervisors:
Associate Professor Peter Connolly, Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
Associate Professor Bettina Lamm, University of Copenhagen, IGN (DK)

Assessment committee:
Professor Conal McCarthy, Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) – Chair
Professor Stavros Stavrides, National Technical University of Athens (GR)
Associate Professor Natalie Gulsrud, University of Copenhagen, IGN, (DK)
Senior Lecturer Catherine Trundle, LaTrobe University, Melbourne (AUS)

Summary:
A practice-based investigation into community-driven relationships with land in New Zealand built from artistic projects. The thesis introduces the notion of spatial commoning.

Abstract:
The ability for community actors to come together to collectively occupy, and share space in an open network commons, with a view to a sustained presence, must be intentional. In this thesis, I explore as a curator-practitioner how three projects, which began through artistic initiatives, had varying levels of success in generating sustained community commons. I ask how: does the practice of curating assist with longer and more open experiences of community building, within specific sites? What must this practice, that I call spatial commoning, need to navigate in a settler colonial context?

After several years as a curator of social art practice, and broker of temporary spaces for artists and communities within urban landscapes, I observed a long-term trend toward enclosure of community and social spaces by market forces. Yet while cities are being enclosed by commercial interests in Aotearoa/New Zealand, certain Indigenous customary lands are gaining legal status outside the bounds of ownership.

Through investigative encounters with activist movements in Europe I took a commons framework based on civic use and moral rights to imagine a longer-term approach to community building with artists. However, importing a commons approach within a settler colony risks usurping existing Indigenous claims to land. This practice requires self-scrutiny as a Pakeha (non-Indigenous New Zealander). The thesis research was eventually developed using three cases from my own practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand within urban, suburban and forest settings and in investigation from a community-led perspective. In aiming to understand what it takes to occupy a site within community, for the long term and for a wide range of people, I point to the relationships between forces of political, legal, artistic and spatial levers and propose a three-phase practice approach to spatial commoning that requires the understanding of spatial forces as well as the building of a conscious community.

A digital version of the PhD thesis can be obtained from the PhD Secretary phd@ign.dk