Managing co-curation as care-based commoning: Care, commons, and cultural participation in the visual arts

Background Co-curation has increasingly challenged traditional curatorial models by involving citizens and communities directly in cultural production and decision-making. While research has examined co-curation, cultural commons, and care ethics separately, little is known about how collaborative artistic projects are collectively governed and sustained in practice. This paper addresses this gap by conceptualising co-curation as a form of care-based communing. Methods Drawing on commons theory and the ethics of care, particularly the work of Tronto (2013a, 2013b, 1993) and Puig de la Bellacasa (2017, 2011), the study investigates collaborative relationships among artists, mediators, and citizen patrons within the New Patrons (Les Nouveaux Commanditaires) initiative using qualitative content analysis on 24 semi-structured interviews conducted in France and Italy. Results The findings show that co-curation operates as a dialogical and adaptive process through which participants construct shared intentions, negotiate diverse perspectives, and collectively steward artistic projects. Conclusion The study highlights the pivotal role of mediators as relational infrastructures that facilitate collaboration and sustain active participation over time. It further demonstrates that collaborative cultural production depends not only on shared governance arrangements but also on care-centered practices of attentiveness, responsiveness, and relationship maintenance. The paper contributes to the literature by integrating co-curation, commons theory, and care ethics into a unified framework of care-based commoning.