Dear Community,
Thank you to everyone who has reached out to offer feedback, support and share their experiences in response to our Sunset Announcement and the release of our Audit Report in April. We appreciate your engagement with our process and continue to welcome your feedback at questions [at] commonfield.org as we move through this work.
As part of the sunset process, Common Field is pleased to announce our final programs and project commitments for 2022. Over the course of this year, we will continue to share more about this work and the ways you, our community, can participate in and contribute to building our organization’s archival narrative for the future.
With care,
Common Field
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Fellowship Projects in 2022
We are thrilled to continue supporting our 2021 Convening Fellows into 2022 with additional project funds and opportunities for their ongoing work. Throughout the summer, Fellows Talon Bazille, Angela N. Carroll, Suzanne Kite, and Tony Patrick (pictured above, left to right) will share insight into their ongoing practices and current work through interviews and Instagram takeovers on the @Common_Field account!
Save the Date: Fall Seattle Gathering!
Friday, Sep 30 – Sunday, Oct 2, 2022
Common Field is honored to be organizing a final hybrid gathering in Seattle, Washington this fall, working in partnership with an exciting Seattle organizing team! Stay tuned for more next month about our incredible group of Seattle collaborators and the program!
Membership Transition Project
To support our members of our Network in staying connected, we are opening a Membership Transition Fund this summer where current Common Field members can request $50 to join a new membership program or engage with other field activities to stay connected. We are also working on gathering final thoughts, reflections and hopes from our Network this summer through a survey. We hope to include your responses in our archives, and as part of our larger Learning and Outcomes project. More next month on how you can request funds and participate in our survey.
In the months to come, we’ll be sharing more with current members about how to prepare your member pages for our organizational archive, and close your account following the completion of website repair. Stay tuned and thank you for your patience as we move through some technical fixes!
A reminder that Common Field’s membership program will close on Friday, September 30 and we are no longer taking new members in 2022. If you are a current member, you will not be charged this year and we welcome you to reach out to us with any questions at hello [at] commonfield.org
Archives Project
Common Field is thrilled to share that we will be collaborating with the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA) to organize and house our institutional materials since 2013. This archival collection will be available for public access following the closure of Common Field in December 2022. We could not be more excited to be working with LACA to ensure this critical piece of sunsetting work will provide a great resource for the field for years to come! More soon regarding the future of our physical, digital, and media-based archival materials!
Learnings and Outcomes Project
Common Field’s team is currently working to develop the scope and scale of a learnings and outcomes project. Our ambition is to bring as many voices as we can to help narrate the history of our field, the life and work of Common Field, and the lessons, ideas and questions we hope to take with us into the future. This work will be ongoing and concurrent with other programs and projects throughout the year, and we hope to share more details with you in late summer and early fall!
Audit Repair Work
The 2021 Audit Report was written with the intention that all forward repair, restoration and planning work would take place over multiple years. This month, the Common Field team is meeting with our audit consultants to determine the best path forward to address the work recommended in the report this year. Later this summer, we plan to share those commitments with you and work toward them until the end of the year.
2022 Sunset Budget
You can find our 2022 Sunset Budget on our website here. As part of our process, we want to be able to share with you how we are allocating resources in a way that aligns with our commitments for sunsetting. Please direct any questions to questions [at] commonfield.org
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Design: Margaret Andersen & Common Field