Open Call: Commoning Experimentation Pilots

Trans Europe Halles invites its members to propose, experiment with, and pilot commoning practices within their cultural spaces and neighbourhood contexts.

This call supports practice-based experiments that explore how independent cultural organisations can act as commons: shared infrastructures, collective governance processes, and relational ecologies that resist extraction, cultural commodification and all forms of enclosure.

For this call, we frame commoning as:

  • Practices of sharing resources 
  • Open and accessible to everyone
  • Governed collectively, self-managed, and participatory 
  • Based on cooperation, care, and mutual responsibility.

The concept of commons is very crucial within our network’s work as it guides us towards an understanding on how communities can collectively manage shared resources, spaces, and practices. An ancient social form that has survived for centuries by constantly renewing itself, the commons is defined not by physical nature but by the active role communities play in governing themselves through collective decision-making, shared responsibility, and practices of care extended to both humans and more-than-humans. This makes commons both a practical and political tool that allows prevailing conventions to be questioned and reimagined.

We don’t frame commoning as:

  • a legal status 
  • a branding strategy 
  • a one-off participatory event

What to expect as a support:

Trans Europe Halles invites its members to propose, experiment with, and pilot commoning practices within their cultural spaces and neighbourhood contexts. TEH will support two proposals for Commoning Experimentation Pilots from within our Trans Europe Halles membership that will be supported in 2026.

(Note: This is a support to a new experiment or proposal. Not to operationally support existing organisations already working with commons.)

Each proposal/experiment will receive: 

  • Financial support to implement the practice (€1200 + VAT) per commoning pilot 
  • Peer exchange with the other selected (group/collective of TEH) members
  • Process-based mentoring (not evaluation-driven)
  • Visibility within the TEH network as a shared learning process

What we are not expecting:

  • polished outcomes
  • scalable models
  • a traditional reporting style.

What we are expecting:

Experiments which emphasis is on learning together, not on producing best practices.

You will be able to select your own medium of reporting.

How to apply:

To apply, please fill in the application form below.

Deadline: 10 of May

Applications should include:

  1. A brief description of the context and challenge
  2. The commoning practice you want to experiment with
  3. Who is involved (inside and outside your organisation)
  4. What is at stake (resources, power, care, time, space)
  5. What you hope to learn (not achieve)
  6. How can other members of TEH learn and their communities

Timeline for participants - 2026

  • Call opens: 19 of April 
  • Deadline: 10 of May 
  • Selection announced: 17 of May
  • Online welcome & intro: end of May
  • TEH Camp meeting preparation session: to be decided
  • Follow‑up meetings: to be decided
  • Final sharing & report: end of October 

Questions about the call?

Contact the TEH Coordination Office at erika@teh.net

We are excited to hear from you!