About

Temporary Commons Ethical Framework Diagram (2025)

Temporary Commons co-create in conversation with ki, kith and kin.
Our team expands in response to the scope and scale of each project.
Based in Scotland, we have worked extensively both here and in international contexts with project partners in Nepal, Taiwan, Pakistan, Vermont, North Carolina, Ireland, England and Sri Lanka.

Together we have made:
Puppetry, print, textiles, exhibitions, spoken word, theatre performance, music and animation

With:
Agrarians, ecologists, educators, human rights lawyers, criminologists & workers for migrant justice, humanitarian aid and health care

Our work is Creatively Produced by Emma Brierley:

Emma (she/they), is a Maker, Designer, Socially Engaged Artist and Cultural FieldWorker* with 20 years experience in projects that intersect arts, community, ecology and social justice
Their interests stem from a rural and working class upbringing steeped in community collaboration, food sharing and celebration - with roots that span from the North East Highland's Muckle Burn to Helensburgh's Gare Loch on the West Coast

* The term Cultural Fieldworker has been shaped by Musa Springer's writing on cultural accountability and Crone, Nightingale & Stanton's publication, Fieldwork for Future Ecologies. We use it to frame an artistic practice that is both ecologically situated and in service of equity, liberation & unity.

Emma's work / Communities of Practice also include:

Co-Director: Edinburgh Agroecology Cooperative at Lauriston Agroecology Farm in North Edinburgh
Shetland UHI's Centre for Island Creativity (Alumni 2025), Art and Social Practice MA - Distinction
Swallow The Sea Caravan Theatre which they co-founded in 2015
Puppet Animation Scotland, now known as Manipulate Arts, which they were a board member with from 2019 - 2023
Rural Academy Theater which they have been a long-distance member of since 2014
Bread and Puppet's international network of alumni apprentices
Alumni of Adam Smith College's diploma in Physical Theatre (class of 2011)