Unlearning to Build Tomorrow's Commons

Part of the Essex Business School Research Conference 2025

COVER invites you to join a discussion event on the themes of Unlearning Routines of the Impossible and Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning. These books emerge from the long-term artistic practice of Annette Krauss, developed in collaboration with Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons in Utrecht. While initially framed around unlearning within art institutions, this discussion extends their insights into broader commons-based forms of organising and cooperation beyond the art world. Taken together these books explore unlearning as a collective and creative practice that unsettles ingrained habits, institutional norms, and entrenched assumptions. By shifting attention away from accumulation and progress-driven learning, they ask how we might dismantle the taken-for-granted truths that structure our institutions, organisations, and daily lives, opening space for new modes of cooperation, justice, and collective imagination.

Together, we will reflect on how practices of unlearning can strengthen efforts to build new forms of commons and cooperative economies. This means not only developing alternative ways of working and living, but also unlearning the deep-seated routines of exclusion and discrimination that often undermine collective projects. The event will create space for dialogue around everyday and systemic practices – from small, embodied exercises to structural transformations – that can foster more just, sustainable, and collaborative forms of organizing. We warmly welcome you to join this conversation as we explore how unlearning can serve as a foundation for building resilient, equitable, and creative commons today.

For more information on the books:

• Unlearning Routines of the Impossible
• Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning

Beginning interventions in the discussion from Giovanni Marmont, Stevphen Shukaitis, and Camila Vergara. We will be joined by Annette Krauss and Marianna Takou from Casco.