Curating the Commons
Socially Engaged Public Art
In-depth explorations of socially engaged public artworks from the perspective of a curator and scholar
Description
Since the 2008 financial crisis and Occupy movements around the globe, artists have increasingly turned to socially engaged public art to create new models of artistic production and community engagement. Curating the Commons examines this turn through an in-depth study of performance-centered public art presented in Athens and Piraeus, Greece, during the austerity years. Extending from Henri Lefebvre’s theory of social space, Arfara examines art and social engagement in relation to the commons and self-organized solidarity initiatives, including performance, photography, film, and sculptures that appeared in unexpected urban spaces to complicate notions of memory, mobility, and belonging. These works all ask the question: Who has the right to the city? Combining her scholarly and curatorial work, Arfara advocates for performance-centered public art that resists processes of exclusion and segregation, reclaiming public space as a commons.
By sharing critical insights, Arfara immerses the reader in the working processes of artists and collectives, showing how public art can address ecosocial concerns in aesthetic forms. Curating the Commons offers a grounded perspective on the making of cutting-edge, socially engaged public artworks and contributes to the larger effort to craft more-than-human narratives in response to global events.
Katia Arfara is Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at New York University Abu Dhabi and independent curator.
Reviews
”Katia Arfara offers a rare perspective on the role of the arts and performance in contemporary Greece, precisely because she challenges Greece’s position within a contemporary global landscape. Along the way, her ‘slow curating’ model counters the ‘fast’ and frictionless pace of life in late capital societies, offering a new approach to public art that thoughtfully and nimbly reframes the possibilities of the public sector.”
- Shannon Jackson, University of California, Berkeley
“Against the backdrop of a crisis-ridden Athens, Katia Arfara shows that when artists and curators take the time to engage meaningfully with local conditions and populations, art projects can reclaim the city as a site of consequential dialogue. This is a valuable book that both reflects on the realities of art production and assesses the heterotopic potential of performance.”
- Philip Auslander, Georgia Institute of Technology
“Pause. In this lucid and subtle book on socially engaged art, you will find a new way of sensing the city. Focusing on a series of projects conducted in Athens, Arfara carefully reveals a range of tactics with which artists have collaborated with specific communities. In this comprehensive book Arfara not only addresses the urban crisis in the era of neoliberalism, but also carefully unfurls a method of slowly curating the commons that reignites the artistic rights to the city.”
- Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne
“Curating the Commons suggests that survival beyond La défaite de l'Occident (Emmanuel Todd) is possible through dedicated, gradual processes of ‘curating commons’ on our own terms. The book provides rich, articulate examples drawn from the lived experiences of artists, spectators, and communities Katia Arfara worked with.”
- Tadashi Uchino, Gakushuin University, Tokyo
News, Reviews, Interviews
Read: Interview with Katia Arfara and Dimitri Gondicas for the Director's Bookshelf at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies | March 12, 2026