Performing THE COMMONS
A central concern of my curatorial practice is the critical reexamination of intellectual property (IP) as a structural force that governs not only the circulation of artistic labor but the very conditions under which it is produced, claimed, and shared. I approach IP not merely as a legal mechanism, but as a curatorial terrain—one through which power, authorship, and value are contested and reimagined.
In 2020, under the collective pseudonym Dadais Americanus, I co-authored and formally registered Performing Pro Arts COMMONS (PPAC) with the U.S. Copyright Office. This project, conceived as a transmedia performance and legal experiment, operates simultaneously as an artwork and an IP framework. PPAC establishes a shared intellectual space that enables artists and collectives to collaborate within a non-proprietary, rights-sharing model—one that resists the extractive logic of traditional authorship and foregrounds communal creation and mutual accountability.
The development of the PPAC Art License emerged as a natural extension of this curatorial inquiry. Functioning as both a legal tool and a conceptual apparatus, the license challenges dominant ownership paradigms by embedding principles of reciprocity, solidarity, and care within the structure of artistic exchange. It serves as a model for how curators might engage legal infrastructures not just administratively, but aesthetically and politically.
Projects such as the Teaching Institute for Art & Law further deepen this work, offering an experimental platform where the legal and the artistic coalesce. Here, law becomes material—subject to curatorial intervention, collective study, and radical reinterpretation. Through this initiative, I aim to expand access to legal knowledge and reposition IP discourse within the broader context of cultural and economic justice.
Looking ahead, I am invested in advancing curatorial models that integrate redistributive mechanisms, moral clauses, and collective governance into the fabric of cultural production. My goal is to activate curatorial practice as a space of legal imagination—where ownership is rethought, value is co-produced, and the infrastructure of art is oriented toward equity and the commons. Through tools like the PPAC Art License, I continue to explore how curators can not only interpret or present cultural work, but also reshape the systems that underwrite its existence.
Morals Clause
I employ Morals Clauses as a powerful legal mechanism to carve out intellectual spaces and build multi-dimensional frameworks through performance, text, visual art, and site-specific projects. These clauses serve not only to protect the integrity of creative works but also to challenge traditional structures of ownership and control.
In collaboration with artists and the public, we collectively occupy and reclaim intellectual property, fostering a shared economy that reimagines value beyond profit. Through this equitable distribution model, we reallocate the economic benefits of our immaterial labor and creative production, inspiring new possibilities for solidarity, empowerment, and justice within the cultural landscape.
