The Unfinished as Commons. Material Conditions for a Deeper Democracy

Within the framework of the relations between public space and the various powers that shape it, this article begins with unfinished systems of traces left behind when political and administrative processes abruptly halt. Since the 1950s, Italian governments have invested public funds in the construction of transport infrastructure, hospitals, schools. Far from being a contingent approach, the following decades revealed it as a constant ‘deviation’ – especially in the Mezzogiorno – where hundreds, if not thousands of these works have been left unfinished. The scale and spread of the phenomenon of unfinished public works in Italy display the failure of these policies, emerging as a tangible form of a broader crisis that involves public institutions. New spatial and curatorial practices brought life into unfinished spaces, activating them for the first time through performance and civic participation. We discuss these practices – and their spatial and material characteristics – marking the passage from a state of suspension to long-term transformations. Finally, these practices are seen through the lens of the Commons to bridge them with each other and highlight their emancipatory and deeply democratic nature.