November 13–23, 2023
Arts Collaboratory is pleased to announce that our annual Assembly is taking place in the Netherlands this November, following our previously enriching Assemblies in Indonesia (2014); Senegal (2015); Kyrgyzstan (2016); Costa Rica (2017); Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan (2018); and Uganda (2019), and after a hiatus during the last few years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2023 Assembly is co-organized and co-hosted by member organizations Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and DOEN Foundation, Amsterdam. It will run from November 13–23.
The theme and title of the Assembly is “Harvesting and Futurecasting”
After more than a decade of experimenting, studying, and working together as a translocal art network, Arts Collaboratory (AC) organizations come together to reflect on the practices of collaboration, cooperation, shared resource building, and mutual support we have created. As it is our practice, during the Assembly, member organizations will also consider AC’s future—imagining and thinking about scenarios for what will come next.
The annual Assembly is integral to how AC operates in line with our ethical principles. It is the moment when member organizations physically come together to share time and knowledge, address issues and challenges through collective study, and engage in tooling and decision-making processes. Similarly, the Assembly is also an opportunity to build relations with the local contexts of the hosting members. By visiting initiatives, sites, and institutions at the host location, AC members engage and connect with local ecosystems.
During this special week of encounters, several public events will take place, too. We invite organizations, institutions, artists, cultural workers, and collectives in and around the Netherlands to become acquainted with the network and join us in imagining what a translocal culture of collaboration for social change could look like in the field of expanded artistic practice. For the occasion, we’re happy to announce partnerships with Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), de Appel (Amsterdam), Framer Framed (Amsterdam), HKU MAFA (Utrecht), and Rijksakademie (Amsterdam).
Stay tuned for more information about Arts Collaboratory Assembly events and activities by subscribing to Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons newsletter. If you have any more questions about the network please email info [at] casco.art.
Arts Collaboratory
Founded in 2007 and existing in its current form since 2015, Arts Collaboratory is an ecosystem of 24 diverse art organizations situated in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, all focused on collective governance of the network. The organizations engage in expanded artistic and curatorial experiments for social change as well and sustainability practices in their respective contexts, while experimenting with new geographies of relations and webs of solidarities.
Arts Collaboratory has a self-governing structure organized through assemblies, meetings called banga (meaning “time and space” in the Ugandan language Luganda), working groups, and collaborative projects. They connect different communities of artists, collectives, activists, curators, researchers, organizations, and platforms with different languages, interests, and diverse cultural backgrounds. The aim of unlearning capital—and productivity—driven working methods and practicing anti/decolonization is central to how the network thinks and lives.
Member organizations
32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust (Kampala, Uganda); Al-Ma’mal (Jerusalem, Palestine); Ashkal Alwan (Beirut, Lebanon); Casa Tres Patios (Medellín, Colombia); Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons (Utrecht, The Netherlands); Centre Soleil d’Afrique (Bamako, Mali); Cooperativa Cráter Invertido (CDMX, México); Darb 1718 (Cairo, Egypt); DOEN Foundation (Amsterdam, The Netherlands); Doual’Art (Douala, Cameroon); Kër Thiossane (Dakar, Senegal); Kiosko Galería (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia); KUNCI Study Forum & Collective (Yogyakarta, Indonesia); Lugar a Dudas (Cali, Colombia); Más Arte Más Acción (Chocó, Colombia); Nubuke Foundation (Accra, Ghana); Platohedro (Medellín, Colombia); RAW Material Company (Dakar, Senegal); Riwaq (Al-Bireh, Palestine); ruangrupa (Jakarta, Indonesia); TEOR/éTica (San José, Costa Rica); Theertha (Colombo, Sri Lanka); Visual Arts Network South Africa VANSA (Jonnesburg, South Africa); and Centre d’art Waza (Lubumbashi, Congo).
