The protocol

The practice of Concomitentes is inspired by the methodology of the Belgian artist, François Hers, whereby groups of citizens and artists can work together to create artworks that respond to an identified need in a social environment.

The Hers protocol establishes roles and responsibilities of all the people who come together to create a work that is the fruit of dialogue, with the aim of fostering an artistic practice linked to civil society.

This protocol became the cornerstone of the Nouveaux Commanditaires, a movement that started in France and now operates in several European countries.

"The Protocol of the Nouveaux Commanditaires defines the roles and responsibilities of the agents involved in collective processes of production of works of art in all areas of creation.

- This Protocol provides anyone who wishes to do so - without exception and regardless of location, individually or collectively - with the means to commission a work of art from an artist. It is up to the promoters of this work of art to understand and express a raison d'être for art, as well as to determine the involvement of the community in its creation.

- It proposes to artists to invent ways to respond to the demands of society and, therefore, to accept the sharing of roles that makes artistic creation a collective responsibility and no longer just a private matter.

- It proposes that the mediators, whose role is to establish links between the works and the public, also link people: the artist, the commissioner and, more broadly, all the social actors involved.

The mediator organises the cooperation. He or she provides the necessary knowledge in the choice of the medium and the artist, as well as the skills that ensure the production of the work, taking into account both the requirements of the commission and those of the creation.

The mediator, as the producer of a public work of art, can also take into account the initiative of other artists, when he or she considers that it could respond to a contemporary situation.

- It invites political representatives, patrons and the heads of public or private organisations to contribute to the development of a "democracy of initiative" and to take on a political mediation role that will enable the work to become part of the community for which it is intended. It can also take personal responsibility for a commission that responds to a collective need.

- It urges researchers, from their different disciplines, to contribute to the recognition of the need for art, to put into perspective the actions developed and to elaborate an understanding of their contexts and challenges that can be widely disseminated.

By committing to an equal sharing of responsibilities, all actors agree to manage, through negotiation, the tensions and conflicts inherent to public life in democracy.

The work of art, thus transformed into an actor in public life, is no longer only the emblematic expression of a single individuality but of people determined to "make society", giving a common sense to contemporary creation.

Financed through private and public subsidies, the work becomes the property of a community and its value is no longer determined by the market, but by the use that this community makes of it and the symbolic importance it attaches to it".

François Hers, 1990, would take up the initial problematic and would ground it in a commission for an artist to activate a production of a work resulting from this joint negotiation.