what kind of we could we be?the poetics of wevarious contributors

At the 14th Gwangju Biennial, the workshop what kind of we could we be?: the poetics of we was held on 8 April 2023 and continued the research and brainstorming initiated at documenta fifteen. A group of 100 artists, curators, and scholars participating in the biennial’s public programme wrote a document about the poetics of collectivism. They used Framapad, an open-access collaborative text editor, to compile the document.

The process itself, which was led by Ming Tiampo, was based on a methodology introduced to Worlding Public Cultures by the writer, researcher, and educator maya Beginning of page[p. 36] rae oppenheimer. Participants were assembled into smaller groups, and together they compiled the illustrated documents by collectively responding to prompts. This led to larger discussions about how collectives of people, plants, animals, and things are described in different cultural and poetic contexts.

The prompts included the following questions: how do we imagine ourselves beyond the individual? What do each of those words say about the connections between us? How do we imagine other worlds and other forms of togetherness? Which words do we use to describe groups of people, plants, animals, and things? How do we move? Which words and images do we use to describe movements of people, animals, objects, and water? What connects us? What separates us? What destroys worlds? What repairs?

Although most of the contributors chose to remain anonymous, the following individuals wanted to be credited: Frances Morris, U(S)TOP Group, Ricardo J Reyes, Carmel Rowden, Jason Waite, Hera Chan, Ekaterina Frolova, and Ming Tiampo.