The Green Art Commission Toolkit

Context
The Green Art Commission Toolkit is the diffusion element of the Art Living Lab for Sustainability (ALILAUS) European project.

It’s a serious game, a workshop base, a discussion-animating instrument and a space for collective research open for further additions and different scenarios adaptations.
It’s a guiding tool in order to write a green-based art commission project upon the New Patrons’ modus operandi through the replication of the given examples and the following of the game narration itinerary.

At the end of the session — through the critical debate and opinion exchanges sparked by the Toolkit — a lot of questions about each part of the project are collectively answered and an account of the commissioners/participants project is sketched.

This Toolkit is the running base for a common session or workshop to visualise the actual questions one should answer for an ecological art commission.
It induces a common conversation following the New Patrons’ modus operandi.
It helps keeping things in mind.
It helps fostering new narratives and changing local narratives.
It guides an art commission's story in an environmentally friendly manner to produce a monstration of "invisible" subjects. Additionally - as the purpose of monstration is to reveal, disseminate, clarify, and make accessible - it takes the shape of a wiki, open source and collective serious game.

How to prepare the board
To get the Toolkit ready, you'll need:
- A black-and-white A4 printer
- A ream of white and colored sheets (orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and pink).
- Scissors
- Scotch tape

Refer to the documents available hereunder to:
—> print the board in 4 x A4 sheets and put them together
—> alternatively, if you'd like and can, print the readymade A2 version of the board
—> print each set of cards on the designated color paper, then cut each bundle of cards out separately by following the lines
—> place each bundle of cards on the designated spot on the board
You are ready to play!

How to play
You have the option of leading a session with a mediator from the New Patron organisation or leading it alone with the group of persons of your choosing.
If you want to run the session with a mediator or need informations and tips to organise one, please contact chiara.santiniparducci@nouveauxcommanditaires.eu

The central Needs & Wishes question is answered at the beginning and end of the session, which then proceeds in the numerical order of each subsequent question and the round.
A Stepping Stone moment in your project's conception is completed as a result of the questions asked during each session (The Commissioners, The Brief, The choice of the artist, The artwork realisation, The Opening, the Heritage).
Stepping stones cases are feedback moments.
Upon arrival at The Heritage stepping stone block you will have to answer The Aftermath questions leading you to the second and final Need & Wishes central question.
Congratulations, you completed the session!

This is the basic run of the game.
The important rule being following the round since it is based on (many years of) the experience on how an artistic commission should develop.
The group of commissioners must be composed first and engage itself. Upon this engagement the project can move toward the agreements with the other parts involved: the artist(s), the stakeholder(s), the public, etcetera.

There is plenty of room for improvisation and customisation.
Some questions can be left open and be addressed later to see what becomes of them along the way.

You are free to set a price for reaching a stepping stone, for example take a break or celebrate somehow.
The toolkit can be run at several stages and times of the commission process. It can be run in more than one take. And more than once.

Along the session you can decide whether to take notes on color matching paper, your notebook or in the complementary editable PDF furnished hereunder.
The PDF is structured in order to recall the sessions and the question and to obtain, upon completion with your answers, a complete, structured description and presentation of your project.

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The Green Art Commission Toolkit is open source and wiki.

Feedbacks, commentaries and ideas can be sent to: chiara.santiniparducci@nouveauxcommanditaires.eu

We engage ourselves to read and answer messages every 6 months and update the Toolkit at least once a year to keep it actual and cogent.

Concept: Chiara Santini Parducci, de Nieuwe opdrachtgevers/les Nouveaux commanditaires, Belgium

Content: Thérèse Legierse, Astrid Goubert, de Nieuwe opdrachtgevers/les Nouveaux commanditaires, Belgium

Graphic design: Marie Graphiste

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Creative Europe programme under grant agreement NO 101099159