Making Urban Commons

The Art Project of “Everyone’s East Lake”

Abstract

The urban commons is a public resource that citizens collectively manage and enjoy, but it is also a collective political experience beyond the state and the market (Huron, 2017). Thus, the urban commons is not just a thing, but a particular social relation and the struggle towards the urban commons is also an ongoing social practice that makes alternative relations (Harvey, 2012; Caffentzis and Federici, 2013; Tan, 2018). It is worth noting that the digital commons are emerging with the development of Internet technologies (Stalder, 2010). People in the digital world can access data, information, and knowledge at a lower cost and are more likely to produce based on the motivation of communication and sharing rather than on profit and exchange (Benkler, 2008).