Since 2017, The Surplus of the Non-Producer has travelled through several venues, from art centers to high schools, disseminating along the way a practice of commoning that challenges the codes and habits of institutional praxis. Working with and through the plurality of the assembly, Ève Gabriel Chabanon invites us to question the conditions and politics of cultural labor. The Surplus of the Non-Producer then continued testing its modes of gathering, dwelling, making debt and making space on the edge and through the margins in “Le Surplus” at Bétonsalon, Paris (2020); “Chapter 3” at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (2020); and “Chapter 4: Sold” at Beursschouwburg, Brussels (2021). Well, then a solution is: practice more failure. From workshops and exhibitions to contractual negotiations and collective translations, Ève Chabanon modelled “The Surplus” as a loose yet abiding get-together that this publication attempts to crystallize.

With contributions by Mathilde Belouali-Dejean, Sophie Cras, Sofia Dati, Abou Dubaev, Cédric Fauq, Katherine Gibson, Abdulmajeed Haydar, Aram Ikram Taştekin, Philipp Kleinmichel, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Rosanna Puyol Boralevi, Kristina Scepanski, Johanna-Yasirra Kluhs.