Commons are often understood as land and resources shared by all members of a community, historically these were areas where people could forage and hunt food, graze livestock and gather together. However, this way of conceptualising the commons risks detaching the term from what is immaterial and not so easily measured. Perhaps the value of the commons is in what lies beyond this limit: an entanglement of living systems, human and nonhuman, where honouring interconnection prevails over principles of ownership, exchange and profit.

In Common gathers together thirteen pieces in the form of poetry, essays, photographs and interviews by Ben Rosamond, Dan Kelly, Toyah Webb, Vanessa Arapko, Jade Kake, Dieneke Jansen, Amber French, Oliver Cull, Katie Kerr, Freya Elmer, Nate Rew, Eleanor Cooper and essa may ranapiri. These contributions enquire into colonisation and land dispossession, management of resources, conservation and kaitiakitanga, urban planning and gentrification, housing, gender and containment.