Art/Commons. Anthropology beyond Capitalism

Seminar summary

Art/Commons is the first book to theorise the commons from the perspectives of contemporary art history and anthropology, focusing on the ongoing tensions between art and capitalism. This study is grounded in an analysis of contemporary artistic and curatorial practices, which the author describes as practices of commoning, based on co-production, participation, mutualism and the valorization of reproductive labour. Mollona proposes a novel theoretical approach to current debates on the commons, and shows that art can provide both a language of anti-capitalist and post-colonial critique as well as a distinctive set of skills and practices of commoning.

How to attend this seminar

This seminar will take place on Wednesday 30 October 2025 at 4pm.

It is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

We welcome you to join us in EBS.2.1 in the Essex Business School building.

Speaker bio

Massimiliano Mollona

Massimiliano Nicola Mollona’s develops institutional experiments around the notion of ‘commons’ – cross-sectional spaces of political and economic autonomy – as teacher, researcher, curator, activist, and filmmaker. Based on a participatory methodology, that brings together critical anthropological enquiry and art interventions, his research focuses on issues of class, labour, and decolonial and postcapitalist transformations. Mollona has taught Anthropology of Art and Political Anthropology at Goldsmiths, London and currently teaches at the Department of the Arts (DAR) at the University of Bologna. He was director of the Athens Biennial OMONIA; co-director of the Bergen Assembly and is founding member of the Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI).