Field note
Not as individuals. As a commune.
The movement's plainest sentence. Climate practice as something people hold together.
The photograph is a circle of hands in wet earth. The sentence on it is short enough to remember, which is why it belongs at the front of the journal. We are building climate solutions together. Not as individuals. But as a commune.
A commune can sound like a costume. In this movement it is a working arrangement. Tools, meals, roofs, questions, mistakes. The opposite of a personal brand that happens to use the word community.
The hands in the picture are not a metaphor someone art-directed from a distance and then forgot. They are the argument. Different ages. Different skin. Mud on the wrists. Jewellery that says these are people with lives, not symbols of unity. The work starts from that fact. People are already particular. A structure has to be useful to particular people, or it is only a poster.
Common Ground does not claim this circle has solved the climate. The sentence says building, not built. That tense is the whole ethics of the L-board. An attempt, held in public, so other people can see the shape of it and decide whether to try their own.
If you run a space, this is the invitation underneath the form. Not to become a chapter. To say what you already share, and what you are still figuring out how to share. The commons gets larger when the notes are specific.