Partial Common Ownership for Serpentine Arts Technologies

Partner/s

Serpentine Arts Technologies

Location

Hybrid:

• Platform hosted online (pco.art).
• Community pilot rooted in Salinas Grandes, Argentina (Fairclouds).
• Convenings in London (Beyond Cultures of Ownership) and Seoul (Aerocene Seoul).

Dates

2023—2024

Short description of the project

We incubated and built an experimental platform and governance pattern — Partial Common Ownership of Art (PCOArt) — to prototype how art can be stewarded as a plural, relational asset rather than an exclusive private commodity. The project produced: a clear model (Stewardship Licences, Stewardship Cycles, Periodic Honorariums), a working prototype web interface and smart-contract testbed, public convenings to mobilize artists and policy actors, and a pilot (Fairclouds) that channels material value back to an affected community (Salinas Grandes).

What problem did this project seek to address?

PCOArt responds to several interconnected failures in the current art economy:

1. Value capture vs. labor: Artists and their collaborator communities seldom capture ongoing value created by works; resale royalties are partial and often unenforceable.
2. Atomized ownership: Exclusive title concentrates control and severs the social relationships (communities, contributors) that give works meaning and public value. PCO creates persistent institutional ties between stewards and creator communities.
3. Precarity: Contemporary artists often lack stable income streams; PCO offers recurring, predictable honoraria and incentives for positive stewardship.

Who were the key audiences or communities of participants?

• Artists: Instigators and authors of artworks
• “Creator Circles”: Individuals, entities and communities that are integral to the creation of an artwork, by supplying inspiration and context for the artwork, contributing informal or invisible labour to the artwork, and/or participating in producing and maintaining the artwork
• Art collectors: Supporters of art willing to hold time-limited stewardship rights and community obligations.

How does this support more democratic outcomes?

PCOArt builds democracy into art ownership by replacing one-off private sales with ongoing, accountable relationships:

• Shared value: Periodic honoraria ensure artists and their communities continue to benefit as works gain value.
• Circulating stewardship: Time-limited licenses prevent indefinite concentration of control and create regular opportunities for new stewards to participate.
• Community rights: Stewardship licenses can encode obligations around display, care, and social commitments, giving affected communities enforceable voice.

Together these mechanisms redistribute cultural and financial power, turning ownership from exclusion into stewardship and aligning the art market with more plural, democratic outcomes.

How did RxC add value/support this experiment?

RadicalxChange’s contributions included:

• Research: Designing a new model for asset ownership (PCO).
• Tools: Building an open source prototype (pco.art).
• Experiments: Spearheading a pilot project (Fairclouds).
• Network: Convening an aligned group of artists, technologists, policymakers and funders (Beyond Cultures of Ownership, Aerocene Seoul).

What were the outcomes or impacts?

The project transformed Partial Common Ownership from a theoretical concept into a functioning prototype, a real-world pilot, and a network of artists, technologists and institutions taking it seriously as a new standard for asset ownership.

Are there any testimonials, documents, assets, links or other ways we can illustrate this project?

https://futureartecosystems.org/

https://pco.art/

https://www.radicalxchange.org/wiki/pco-art/

https://www.radicalxchange.org/updates/blog/rethinking-art-ownership/

https://fairclouds.life/en/faq/what-is-partial-common-ownership/

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/beyond-cultures-of-ownership/