The mode of feeling in modern culture is associated with the interexistence of several competing aesthetic systems, which simultaneously complement each other and exist in a specific antagonism. A striking example of such interaction can be considered decolonial and participatory aesthesis. In addition to the differences in the settings of these theories: the construction of a universal model or a number of local constructs of the perception of art, there is a visible commonality between the classical participatory aesthesis and the decolonial one. As part of the analysis of these phenomena, two art projects are compared, which are based on the principle of participation - the “Bilmair Spinoza Festival” and the photo circle “Playing with Photography”. The study reveals a number of contradictions that the projects under consideration resolve in different ways. The main problems raised during the implementation of practices include the relationship between the work and the viewer, the artist and the viewer, the viewer as an element of the work and a participant in its creation. Within the framework of a decolonial artistic project, the complexity of such relationships is removed not through formal visibility, but through the process of forming a borderline state during interaction with other subjects.