Institution(ing)s

Institution(ing)s is a collaborative experiment which aims to create a new kind of cultural institution without walls, i.e., institutions which represent living organisms in constant mutability and (ex)change. It is associated to the international collaborative research project and network Other Institution(s), and expects to cut across silos, disciplines, and areas, and support contextualised research, situated practices and translocal knowledge production as shared resources for a socially and environmentally sustainable future. It focuses on the arts practitioner as a leader engaged in care and repair, towards world-creating.

Institution(ing)s is a European Cooperation Project that encourages contemporary art and cultural organizations to co-create innovative institutional models that, through experimentation, co-creation and speculation of sustainable futures, contribute to social inclusion, environmental, economic, and artistic transformation. Composed of 9 organizations of different scales, impacts and target audiences, in 8 European countries, the Institution(ing)s represents the diversity of the ecosystem of the cultural sector. It establishes a sustainable cooperation between 1 museum (CAM-Gulbenkian), 1 konsthall (Tensta Konsthall), 2 higher-education institutions (Faculty of Human Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design of the Universitetet I Bergen), 1 publisher running an art Biennial (Errant Sound / The Listening Biennial), 1 local network (tranzit.ro), 1 arts-in-residency post-academy (Jan van Eyck Academie), and 2 non-profit art-organizations (MOCA NGO and Museum of Impossible Forms) performing specific roles in the art sector. Each partner responds to shared planetary challenges from each of their situated practices and (economic, social, cultural, political) contexts across the European continent (N, E, S, W). By coming together with differences and commonalities in a sort of an institution without walls, a living organism in constant processes of exchange and transformation, the Institution(ing)s will bring innovative perspectives to respond to cross-cutting challenges and contribute to the strengthening of European citizenship in a project of social equity and sustainability.

Institution(ing)s is born of the idea of instituent practices (Gerald Raunig), defined as “the actualization of the future in a present becoming.” It is the practice of implementing the speculations of next systems dreamers. There are two types of work that go into an instituent practice. First, there is the creation and recreation of an explicit plan, comprised of the legal, financial, and procedural rules that are typically set out by one person or a small group of founders. The second kind of work involved is the management of interpersonal or infrastructural dynamics internal to the framework, or the relationship between the framework and external social dynamics, which evolve over time. The result is, like the Institution(ing)s, a framework, a choreographic score for instituting an emerging social vision. It is a collaborative experiment that aims to cut across silos, disciplines, and fields to support contextualized research, situated practices, and translocal knowledge production as shared resources for the future. It seeks to test and share innovative methodologies both in the public parts as well as in the not so visible, internal practices and policies of art institutions; it investigates how long-term collaborations that centre socially, economically and environmentally sustainable working methods can envision an expansive form of kinship and custodial relationships with artists, collaborators, with the human and more-than-human towards imagined futures; and it explores alternatives beyond institutional critique towards a healthier arts’ ecosystem.

The project activities include 3 social labs, 2 material labs, 3 economy labs, 7 workshops, 8 residencies, 1 call for a glossary of future practices, 8 nomadic schools, 4 community gardens, 8 collective study visits coinciding with 8 content debate assemblies (4 online and 4 on site), 3 sustainability campaigns, 9 fieldworks for policymakers, and seals for good practices.

Both the project and the experiment are funded by Nordisk Kulturfond and the European Union.