Throughout the 2-year experiment, kümülatif aimed to form a network of designers, producers, and academics through workshops and talks, as an invitation to reflect on the wider issues that surround collective work: What is the contemporary relevance of past theories and practices of collaboration? How can we ensure self-organization and sustainability in a dynamic context-dependent system without restricting it?

Mediating cues from a legacy of collaboration and reflecting on today, we came together as kümülatif; a non-hierarchical initiative that defines the design process as a collective experience. We question inequality in visibility of labour in the conventional design and production relations and propose sharing both authorship and earnings. Rethinking William Morris’ News from Nowhere, the anonymous nature of the Omega Workshops, Bauhaus’ practices of working together, Global Tools’ idea of disposing working on a fixed location, kümülatif proposes sharing both authorship and earnings equally amongst the participants.


Core team of kümülatif are Ayşenaz Toker, Billur Turan, Melih Kayhan, Mert Kayhan, Necdet Şahin.