Rosa Jijón & Francesco Martone (A4C)

Arts for the Commons (A4C) is a collective exercise launched by Rosa Jijón and Francesco Martone in 2016, meant to provide a platform for artists and activists exploring the connections and synergies between visual production and efforts to reclaim the commons, address outstanding issues related to human migration, borders, social and environmental justice, the rights of nature. By creating opportunities for exchange, mutual action and sharing, A4C not only operates as a platform but attempts to create a new common, a synthesis between arts and political engagement. A4C intends to explore the interstitial spaces between power and communities, traditional arts system and society, states and territories. They pursue documentation as artistic practice.

Rosa Jijón is an artist, activist and cultural mediator, and former director of the CAC (Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito). She has participated in various international exhibitions (Venice Biennale, Havana Biennale, Cuenca Biennale) and international artistic residences including ARTEA, Residencia Sur Antarctica 2013 and Q21, Vienna 2021. Her work deals with migrations, citizenship, social justice and environment, and has engaged in participatory art production with grassroots organisations and communities.

Francesco Martone is spokesperson of the Italian network in support of human rights defenders, ‘In Difesa Di’, a founding member of Greenpeace Italy, juror and member of the Permanent People’s Tribunal and the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature, and a policy advisor for international NGOs on the rights of indigenous peoples. He is an Associate of the Transnational Institute. He has been engaged in issues relating to forests, climate change, rights of Nature, indigenous peoples’ rights, defenders of the environment and environmental justice since 1988.