Co-creating a festival with and for rural commoning initiatives: a transdisciplinary place-based process

Transdisciplinary collaboration is well-established in sustainability science scholarship. Stakeholders from the cultural and artistic sector can significantly enrich the co-creation process by providing diverse perspectives on caring for people and places in marginalized areas. A key challenge is engaging these stakeholders early in the co-design phase to foster a sense of co-ownership and shared responsibility. To date, artists and cultural experts are mostly involved as service-providers, with little opportunity to embed their visions and values in the project at stake. Drawing on a legacy of transdisciplinary and participatory action research, we present an early collaboration involving architects, designers, cultural and sports association members, educators, farmers, workshop facilitators, and artists. This collaboration focused on co-creating a rural festival to showcase and connect commoning initiatives, and to foster a sense of care for community and environment, in a moment of vulnerability and isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our case study illustrates how festivals can catalyze enthusiasm and energy, engaging the wider public in lived experiences of collective care for social-ecological systems, and providing a platform for marginalized voices, challenging dominant narratives about rural livelihoods and well-being. The research highlights the potential for creating actionable knowledge that is reflective of local contexts and needs. Results also demonstrate how arts- and place-based methods can provide boundary objects that blur disciplinary differences and facilitate dialogue on complex and sensitive sustainability-related issues. We discuss how these methods can be further incorporated into transdisciplinary research and reflect on the practical and ethical challenges posed by early co-design and festive events.