The existence of more than one—bodies, elements, ideas—is the start of relations held in perpetual tension. The labouring within such tensions results in something new, including the production of doubt itself. In this sense, critical thinkers and creative practitioners live in a permanent state of 'double occupation' or what theorist Irit Rogoff terms as 'criticality'; continuously rejecting the status quo in a quest for the new by embodying tensions.

Critics, curators and journalists share an intention to raise doubts and challenge the mould. But what happens when they are in unison with issues being studied or critiqued? Criticality is operating from an uncertain, fortuitous ground of embeddedness that marries knowledge and lived experience in non-complementary ways.

This issue charts projects and discourses that push us beyond critical engagement: Museo MAXXI's ​'Buone Nuove​' show at the STIR ​Gallery explores practice as a ground for action vs. production; Fala Atelier's House of Many Faces is designed to resist obvious signs of domesticity; Charlotte Jansen critiques colonisation as a historical & spatial phenomenon within the museum environment through ​'Indigenous Histories​'; and Paul Goldberger's retort on the arrogance of architecture "to think it will remake the world" is understood in a conversation with the critic.

To embrace a state of such double occupation is to commit to a lifetime of struggle in shaping our next.