Shared Stewardship

What does it mean to grow, process, and craft our everyday textiles and garments by hand, in collectivity? The members of the Shared Stewardship community intimately experience the material, agricultural, and social processes involved in collectively cultivating textiles, objects and garments from seed. With commoning as a guiding principle, together they enact a new economic, social and cultural paradigm.

The Shared Stewardship community was initiated by The Linen Project via an open call in early 2020. Cultivation activities in the first two years took place at Ekoboerderij De Lingehof, Hemmen. The 2022, 2023 and 2024 Shared Stewardship cultivation activities have taken place at organic farm De Horsterhof, Duiven.

In the short film below, members of the Shared Stewardship community, Linen Stewards of 2020, share insight into their experiences and motivation.

The self-organizing participation model emphasizes knowledge development and transfer, shared responsibility, and active citizenship, using the commons as a foundation. The manual approach is essential to understanding the process, as well as fostering a relationship with and appreciation for the materials and outcomes. To make this model transferable, The Linen Project has developed a handbook and guidance framework.