In this article, I aim to address a gap in the discourse on collective curating that pertains to dealing with diverse knowledge systems. The question I wish to discuss is how and whether communal working methods – particularly collective, transdisciplinary, and collaborative approaches – can contribute to the emergence of polyphonic knowledge landscapes, and which conditions and key concepts play a role in this process.
How might one conceive a polyphonic knowledge landscape? What epistemes underpin it? And how can the urgency of collective, transdisciplinary learning be understood as a prerequisite for its development?

Based on these questions, I wish to propose the thesis that the concept of connectivity[1] can serve not only as a foundation and infrastructure for exploring communal, future-oriented practices but also as an analytical tool to examine the parameters of a polyphonic knowledge landscape in curating.

As Gesa Ziemer demonstrates, the reason for this lies "in a paradoxical development in the relationship between the individual and the collective, which describes an increasing individualization within our society while simultaneously maintaining collective needs."[2] Furthermore, this concept can help navigate the "tensions within the collective," where "intensive collaboration is pursued consciously and deliberately despite heterogeneity and the temporality of activities."[3]

Following this thesis, I will use the concept of connectivity to examine contemporary examples from the curatorial field that employ collective, transdisciplinary, and collaborative practices to highlight the potential of polyphonic knowledge landscapes and underscore the urgency of collective learning as the basis for their development.

 

Connectivity and Polyphonic Knowledge Landscapes: A Mycelium of Diverse Perspectives and Voices

First, I would like to outline how connectivity and polyphonic knowledge landscapes can be conceptualized: A fitting metaphor for this is the mushroom and its mycelial network. Through its mycelium, the mushroom is deeply connected to its ecosystem, forming a kind of collective intelligence that links it to its surroundings and ensures its (survival) capabilities.

In a polyphonic knowledge landscape, connectivity symbolizes the mycelium: it embodies the interconnection of diverse perspectives, weaving together the complexity and diversity of different practices, cultures, and knowledge systems, and making them perceptible. Connectivity, as both a social and technical phenomenon, thus creates realities.

For me, a polyphonic knowledge landscape––inspired by a polyphonic aesthetic––can be imagined as a knowledge landscape "of multiplicities and differences, engaging with various practices, situations, and rhythms. An anti-universalist endeavor of differentiated complication and complicity,"[4] in the field of curating, which includes themes of sustainability and alternative knowledge systems.

This knowledge landscape contrasts with "the cosmopolitan aspiration of a sensus communis or the well-meaning but no less colonial gesture of incorporating 'foreign' persons and positions through situating and partiality,"[5] as suggested by Sofia Bempeza, Christoph Brunner, Katharina Hausladen, Ines Kleesattel, and Ruth Sonderegger in their polyphonic aesthetic. Conceptually imagining such an undertaking means detaching from the Western canon of disciplines as the prevailing classificatory category, or expanding it, intertwining with other knowledge systems, and forming new knowledge collectives.

As an alternative to the "traditional concept of 'society,'" Bruno Latour develops the concept of the "collective,"[6] which he defines as the ongoing entanglement of "material, social, and discursive entities."[7]

These new collectives––as starting points for polyphonic knowledge landscapes––could, following Bruno Latour, include what has previously been excluded: marginalized voices, animals, objects, and the environment. At the forefront is the combination and connection of different constellations. Latour's aim of expanding collectives is coupled with the hope of giving voice to entities that have so far been ignored or overlooked.

Within such an imagined assemblage of a new collective in the curatorial field, the curator enters as a node of selection, a site of meaning-making, and sometimes as a disruptor in an otherwise egalitarian space – particularly when they impose or dictate collaborative working relationships from a position of power, i.e., from the outside.

In this sense, I am interested in examining the connectivity underlying collective, collaborative, or transdisciplinary practices in curatorial work – and investigating whether the trajectory of the genius curator, who determines the curatorial knowledge landscape, (still) points toward a collective, collaborative, or transdisciplinary communal process, and what role learning plays in its evocation. Is there a transformative potential here that can generate a future-oriented and speculative polyphonic knowledge landscape? And what forms of connectivity can be identified as the foundation of these practices? To explore this, it is worth revisiting the precise definitions of the terms underpinning these communal practices.

 

Collectivity versus Trans-disciplinarity: Differentiation and Potentials in Curatorial Practice

Collective, transdisciplinary, and collaborative forms of working are characterized by their communal nature, often within a specific context. It is their coming together that gives them their resilience and leads to a redefinition of the relationship between the individual and the group, where the interplay of knowledge, hierarchy, and power plays a decisive role. The objective, besides artistic, scientific, or curatorial processes and insights, is often a transformative aspiration to critique, open up, or expand established structures or approaches.

In all three practices, there is the potential to integrate other knowledge systems. This allows for permeability across disciplines, enriching them with other knowledge systems that can be reflected in working methods, techniques, and forms of collaboration – in their rules, values, and principles.

In this sense, it is important to revisit how these terms are used: the concept of transdisciplinarity originally comes from the history of science but has been adopted due to its adaptability in the arts and curatorial discourses. Transdisciplinarity is a research approach[8] that promotes collaboration across the boundaries of individual disciplines to address complex societal and scientific problems.[9]

This approach makes it possible not only to integrate knowledge and methods from other academic disciplines but also to include actors outside academia, such as artists, activists, policymakers, and the public, in the research process.[10] Transdisciplinarity is also deeply embedded in curatorial approaches and artistic concepts. It frequently appears as a key term in programs, festival descriptions, or calls for papers. In cultural practice, “transdisciplinary themes are among the self-evident hallmarks of a contemporary practice aligned with current times.”[11]

Transdisciplinary practices foster encounters between different perspectives and knowledge systems, thus opening up new resonance spaces. Collective working practices are closely linked to trans-disciplinarity, as they too place communal work at the center to advance processes; however, they differ significantly in the form of their connectivity.

As I observe, there is a stronger focus on community and care relationships, which seem to be favored by collective working practices. Their form of connectivity can develop into a kind of complicity,[12] which usually does not play a prominent role in transdisciplinary processes. Yet, their configurations do not necessarily need to be transdisciplinary in orientation. Their form of knowledge production is a collective knowledge-in-process, developed through the participation, expertise, or individual experiences of members, with decision-making processes and rules collectively determined. Knowledge is often created communally and is egalitarian.

The goals and purposes of collective working methods are not necessarily solutions, as in transdisciplinary processes, but instead have various orientations and objectives. As Marta Keil emphasizes, collective approaches ideally practice:

[…] solidarity instead of competition, question the figure of an individual genius, experiment with various ways of (re)building relations with collaborators and with the publics, focus more on a practice than a singular presentation, take a risk of inviting the unknown to take space, […][13]

Collectivity, therefore, emphasizes not only collaboration and knowledge exchange––not just connectivity––but also the importance of respect, care, and solidarity among people within the collective and with their environment.[14]

Collaborative practices – whether in general as associations of institutions or actors – do not necessarily involve the inclusion or invitation of the unknown. However, they too promote the involvement of other actors and process-oriented knowledge forms in the context and process of knowledge production.

All three practices can thus be compared based on their connectivity, as all three involve "intensive and deliberate collaboration despite heterogeneity and the temporality of activities."[15]

Additionally, a collective need can be observed, which is practiced in varying degrees. But how can these group processes be learned and fostered, and how can connectivity be increased toward a collectively conceived polyphonic knowledge landscape?

With the concept of connectivity, I aim to explore the infrastructures, relationships, or rules within such projects that contribute to the formation of new knowledge communities or collectives through curatorial processes. Such an approach helps decipher the complexity and structures of collaborative, collective, or transdisciplinary processes and grasp their multifaceted interconnections for a future-oriented polyphonic knowledge landscape.

 

The Challenge of Connectivity: Pathways to Promoting and Shaping Polyphonic Knowledge Landscapes

Group processes, in general, require significant empathetic and personal commitment, which in turn entails greater vulnerability. Even when these processes are designed and functioning in a connective way, careful attention is needed to prevent them from failing. The actors carry situated knowledge and a specific or nonspecific vulnerability that must or should be taken into account. In this sense, it is necessary to repeatedly review communication habits or structures—part of technical and social connectivity—and align them with the specific goals of communal work processes. This applies equally to transdisciplinary, collective, and collaborative practices.

 

The Body Reloaded

The inclusion of the body in group processes opens up new perspectives on connectivity as a condition for communal practices. Here, the body becomes an essential interface connecting individuals and groups. In somatic approaches, the body is utilized as a medium for presence, empathy, and resonance. This enables an embodiment of connection that goes beyond mere cognitive understanding, touching on physical and emotional levels that facilitate sensitivity to conflicts within the group and promote collective action. Another concept is that of “embodied communality.”[16] This shows that community is not created solely through language or ideas, but also through nonverbal communication like touch, movement, and shared physical experiences. Moreover, incorporating somatic practices allows for recognizing diversity within a group. Different bodies and perceptions are experienced and integrated into the process, promoting an inclusive community practice.

A compelling approach is proposed by Nicole Haitzinger. She develops a toolbox for somatic practices that can actively contribute to embodied community. According to Haitzinger, somatic practices can serve as a toolkit in curatorial contexts, first to “unlearn” entrenched social patterns and a “habitual stance” in the curator/artist relationship and second to “unlearn” rigid attitudes towards canon and aesthetics.[17]

In this approach, connectivity is not only conceptualized but also physically and emotionally experienced, making it a transformative foundation for collective action. Other evocative examples of embodied communality in new collectives include the School of the Jaguar[18] and the School of Mountains and Water[19] (Amanda Piña). These projects create platforms for a diverse knowledge ecology, offering space for alternative forms of sensing and understanding that are practiced collectively and polyphonically.

The School of the Jaguar explores relationships between humans, animals, and plants in Amerindian cultures, creating a space for dialogue between different knowledge systems. Indigenous elders, artists and scientists collaborate with participants to question and deconstruct universalism.

The School of Mountains and Water organizes performative mountain hikes that combine discursive, educational, and artistic practices. Both projects curate encounters that strengthen diverse perspectives and foster collective being.

These projects rely on connectivity and collective processes to enable new forms of learning and action. They allow cultural and ecological connections to be experienced, constellating different knowledges—including those involving humans, animals, and plants—as equals, and acknowledging varied perspectives.

Overall, these projects create platforms where connectivity and collectivity go hand in hand to experiment with new polyphonic knowledge ecologies, imagining them as parts of an embodied community and a new collective.

 

Knowledge Theater Reloaded

For me, an essential feature of connectivity––besides the body as an interface––are the spaces of encounter, whether physical, digital, or imaginary. These spaces are the condition for a polyphonic knowledge landscape, as they bring together diverse actors, enabling the physical or digital convergence of various knowledge systems.

In the curatorial field, these spaces include real venues such as museums, theaters, festival sites, and site-specific venues, as well as curated—constructed—spaces within these venues. I want to describe all these spaces as knowledge theaters because they offer the possibility of experiencing the macrocosm—the world—polyphonically within the microcosm of a festival, program, or discourse series, to play out futures and test transformations.

Two examples of knowledge theaters demonstrate their fundamental role as conditions for connectivity in collective and transdisciplinary curatorial practices. The first example is part of the program of documenta fifteen and illustrates how collective practices can form a polyphonic knowledge landscape that prepares futures together and makes practical utopias tangible.

The second example of a knowledge theater is a multidisciplinary platform whose purpose lies precisely in involving the community and exchanging knowledge and art.

 

ZukunftsDorf22

documenta fifteen, curated by the curatorial collective ruangrupa, exemplifies how such a knowledge theater can manifest: Inspired by the central motif of “lumbung,” the Indonesian word for a rice barn where surplus harvest is stored for the community’s benefit, the ZukunftsDorf22[20] emerged through Kassel’s Common Good Economy group.

The idea was to create a space for encounter and exchange that advanced ecological, social, and economic transformation in society. The ZukunftsDorf22 considered itself a collective that connected people and initiatives interested in sustainable, socially just, ecological transformation.

The aim was to create a network for the Kassel region based on communal benefit, collective processes, and long-term commitment. The ZukunftsDorf22 sought individuals and groups willing to actively contribute to a “village organism,”[21] align their work with principles of cooperation, participation, and co-production, and embed themselves in a lasting sustainability network.

Together, they aimed to make an experimental and experiential space accessible to all, embodying a “practical utopia”[22] in the ZukunftsDorf22.

The convergence of artistic and social practices in collective collaboration for societal transformation is paradigmatic for both their connectivity—bridging the diverse fields of actors—and the collective need to shape alternate futures together.

 

Savvy Kwata Limbe

The second example is Savvy Kwata Limbe[23] in Limbe, Cameroon, established by Savvy Contemporary: The Laboratory of Form-Ideas in Berlin, in collaboration with various actors in Cameroon. Savvy Kwata Limbe is a multidisciplinary and multifunctional platform in Limbe––a library and community space as well as “a place for the preservation and transmission of knowledge situated beyond the book.”[24]

It is a curated space of encounter and a “network of teachers, students, activists, artists, workers, and traditional leaders in Cameroon that employs decolonial educational and artistic tools to engage the community at the grassroots level.”[25]

Kwata provides a space for communal interactions, whether on collaborative, transdisciplinary, or collective levels, as well as for a “being-with” and “thinking-with,”[26] centering collective needs.

Kwata also fosters the exchange of knowledge, contributing to a polyphonic knowledge community—a knowledge theater where “knowledges and in pursuit of the preservation of traditional practices around arts and crafts, culture, and education”[27] are transmitted and preserved.

ZukunftsDorf22 and Savvy Kwata Limbe are just two of many examples[28] where spaces of encounter serve as enabling spaces for connectivity and thereby for new knowledge communities in the curatorial and global landscape.

I also understand knowledge theaters as alternative “learning spaces” that exist outside traditional educational institutions such as academies, schools, and universities, appearing in festivals, village squares, and artistic or curated programs. They actively contribute to not only preparing but also enabling polyphonic knowledge landscapes. They are part of the evocation of how collective, transdisciplinary, and collaborative practices can be practiced.

 

Engagement with Learning Spaces and Collective Knowledge Production

The transnational research collective topsoil[29] has delved into these learning spaces and the processes of collective knowledge production. They develop questions surrounding individual and collective learning experiences, their diversity, and the relationships formed within and around these learning spaces. These questions address the environments and experiences that make learning possible. They serve as a step toward approaching the question of what forms of coming together are required to meet collective needs and enable polyphonic knowledge landscapes and learning spaces.[30]

Learning spaces, as meeting points, are also crucial in fostering learning and shaping new collectives. Here, the transformative moment of connectivity leading to collectivity takes center stage—a dynamic particularly reflected in projects such as the School of the Jaguar and the School of Mountains and Water.

 

Rules of Connection: How Guidelines Foster Connectivity and Collectivity in Collaborative Work Processes

In addition to knowledge theaters as spaces of encounter, normative forms like rules and guidelines can play a pivotal role in promoting connectivity and collectivity in collaborative work processes. These structures not only facilitate the interaction of diverse actors but also help leverage differences as transformative forces. This is evident in practices such as recognizing diversity, accepting varying time horizons, and creating spaces for counterpositions.

Such frameworks support the inclusion of the body and a conversational culture that does not enforce consensus but fosters dialogue, mutual understanding, and respect. This approach can also reshape and redefine the curation of knowledge theaters and learning spaces, generating connectivity and fulfilling the need for collectivity.

One example is the “Score for Conversational Culture”[31] from the 2024 Curating in the Performing Arts program, which illustrates how guidelines can structure collaboration while also serving as tools to promote connectivity. This and other approaches align with the concept of connectivity as they lay the groundwork for shared practices and strengthen connections across diverse knowledge systems. Guidelines and frameworks, therefore, not only provide orientation but actively foster the emergence of a polyphonic knowledge landscape.

 

Rethinking New Collectives and Polyphonic Knowledge Communities

Connectivity, it is argued, is not only a fundamental condition for collectivity but also the foundation for polyphonic knowledge landscapes. It enables connections between different perspectives, practices, and knowledge systems, forming the infrastructure for collaborative processes.

Forms of connectivity—such as somatic practices, learning spaces, knowledge theaters, or the establishment of guidelines and manifestos—create spaces for encounter, exchange, and collective action. These approaches not only transform curatorial practices but also foster collective agency by understanding differences as resources rather than obstacles.

The metaphor of “forest monoculture”[32] underscores the urgency of this reorientation. The intellectual monocultures shaped by Western modernity have constrained the diversity of our thinking and actions through homogenization and alienation. Connectivity acts as a counterproposal: it can be understood as a mycelium—a dense network of relationships and connections where collectives can grow as polyphonic communities.

This kind of diversity and mutual learning counters monoculture and holds the potential to transform our relationships with one another and the environment. The goal of communal practices thus becomes the creation of polyphonic knowledge landscapes. These landscapes represent a radical alternative to colonial and homogenizing orders of knowledge by integrating more-than-human entities into the ecosystem.

In this sense, connectivity and collectivity are deeply intertwined: connectivity facilitates relationships between diverse perspectives, while collectivity transforms these relationships into communal practices. The metaphor of mycelium highlights how diverse voices, rhythms, and practices can be interconnected to create a resilient, sustainable, and multilayered knowledge landscape.

This perspective calls for understanding collective curation and communal work as a practice of care—care that not only redefines the relationships between subjects but also strengthens the connection to the environment. Herein lies its transformative potential: to generate a forward-looking, speculative, polyphonic knowledge landscape that sees connectivity as its foundation and collectivity as its goal.

Gwendolin Lehnerer is a theatre and cultural studies scholar as well as a dramaturg. She works as a research associate at the documenta Institute in Kassel, co-leads the program Curating in the Performing Arts in Salzburg, Bochum, and Berlin, and is also co-director of Tanzbüro Salzburg.