A. Introduction
Introduction
Arts Collaboratory (AC) is a translocal ecosystem consisting of 25 diverse organisations around the world focused on art practices, processes of social change, and working with broader communities beyond the field of art.
As an ecosystem, AC exists via processes of collective study and active research in the fields of self-sustainability, self-determination and interdependence through radical imagination. It functions as a meeting point where these organisations can share knowledge, collaborate on projects, and build emotional and financial support together. AC is a place for building self-care and work in common across territories in order to form a community of solidarity based on the idea of mutualism. The organizations constantly practice radical imagination, and critical thinking, through self organization in order to generate the power to write our own history.
The current AC organisations in the ecosystem include:
32º East | Ugandan Arts Trust (Kampala), Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art (Jerusalem), Art Group 705 (Bishkek), Ashkal Alwan (Beirut), Casa Tres Patios (Medellín), Centre Soleil d'Afrique (Bamako), Cooperativa Cráter Invertido (Mexico City), Darb 1718 Contemporary Art and Culture Center (Cairo), Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory (Utrecht), Doual’art (Douala), Kër Thiossane (Dakar), Kiosko Galería (Santa Cruz de la Sierra), KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Yogyakarta), Lugar a Dudas (Cali), Más Arte Más Acción (Choco), Nubuke Foundation (Accra), Platohedro (Medellín), Raw Material Company (Dakar), Riwaq (Ramallah), ruangrupa (Jakarta), Stichting DOEN (Amsterdam), TEOR/éTica (San José), Theerta (Colombo), Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) (Johannesburg), Waza (Lubumbashi).
Brief History of Arts Collaboratory
Arts Collaboratory was founded in 2007 by two Dutch foundations Stichting DOEN and Hivos as both a funding program and a platform for knowledge sharing amongst visual artists’ initiatives in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Its aim was to support the growing movement of artists initiatives that provide alternatives to the often lacking or inflexible established arts scenes in their local context, and to strengthen the south-south connections between these organisations. Soon after its beginnings the Mondriaan Fund joined, supporting the exchange between Arts Collaboratory linked organisations and the Dutch arts field.
In response to the shifting economic situation in Europe, after a long consultation process in 2012, the program of Arts Collaboratory was re-designed in 2013. The new mission of Arts Collaboratory became to promote sustainable, collaborative and open visual arts practices that contribute to social innovation. Also, more emphasis was put on building a translocal community amongst the participants. 23 participating organizations were selected to constitute the core of the community and in order to better facilitate the knowledge sharing and relation building process within the network, the funders Hivos and DOEN started a collaboration with Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
This new phase focused on building trust and sharing through face to face meetings in Assemblies, Tents, and Institutional Residencies. These gatherings produced a series of collaborative projects between the participating organizations.
In 2015, during the Assembly in Senegal, the Arts Collaboratory members agreed to go further into the collaboration and to develop a common vision.
The current model relies on a horizontal approach rather than a top-down one and seeks to nurture a new relationship to funding and accountability based on trust and continued study. The rethinking of funding models, models of working with art locally and trans-nationally while unlearning the current modalities of working, and, most importantly, devising the self-sustainable and open system of trans-local collectivity are amongst the central issues.
In light of these paradigm shifts, the position of DOEN, Hivos, and Casco were revisited. The organizations were asked if they wanted to fully join AC, committing to the ethical values. While, DOEN and Casco were enthusiastic and ready to join, Hivos chose to remain as an observer for the time being with a potential interest of joining in the future. These inclusions acted as a stepping stone for AC’s self-determination, further emancipating itself from its origin as a funder-created umbrella.
Casco’s geographical background, as the only non-funding institution located in the so-called ’global north,’ is viewed as enriching the diversity of practices of AC. This involvement may also serve as a reference for future possibilities of AC opening up to groups /organisations located in the so-called ’global north’.
DOEN’s membership represents an opportunity to gain access into the heart of a funder’s organisation, and efforts are still being made to find strategic ways to communicate the radical changes that are occurring with regard to the systems of governance and sustainability in AC to DOEN’s executive bodies. The third phase of Arts Collaboratory started in 2016.
This document constitutes what is currently AC; it is a result of a collective working process among the previously mentioned organisations, developed through practices and gathering and is still a work in progress.
The timeline and process is further summarized below
Timeline
Colombia, 2011: This meeting was the concluding meeting in the first phase of Arts Collaboratory (2007-2012) and the first meeting where a future was imagined with more emphasis on collaboration and collectivity. The first 7 years of AC had seen a lot of networking and exchange, but had not built a strong collective identity. The Colombia meeting showed however that after these 7 years there was friendship and a shared identity and a wish to move on collectively. The meeting was an important base for the second phase of AC (2013-2015) and the decision to work towards a collectively owned platform. Around 50% of the organisations present in Colombia moved on to the next phase;
Indonesia, May 2014: The first general meeting consisted of learning from and with practices in the Indonesian art scene and affinity building and developing the idea of collaboration;
Senegal, April 2015: The second general meeting included learning from and with practices in the Senegal art scene and developing a deeper knowledge of each member, elaborating on collaborative projects, building future plans (working models) in light of shared passions over Arts Collaboratory and the current obstructions for the passions;
Utrecht, June 2015: The workshop group further developed the future plan that centers around the ’ethical principles’. It was the beginning of the current document.
Kyrgyzstan, June 2016: The third general meeting consisted of learning from and with practices in the Kyrgyzstani art scene while beginning to address and implement the conceptual and organizational concepts presented in the first version of this document. During this meeting, some of the originally defined terms and mechanisms were changed and some were eliminated. The work of consolidating AC based on theory and practice had began.[7]
This document is designed to be an open document that proposes a model for translocal collaboration among socially involved art organisations. In this way, the plan outlined here should not be viewed as definitive, but as a structure in the making. It should work as a place where collective knowledge is formed and supports the commons, not as another regulation or constraint. This reflects the core of the plan: to imagine and practice sustainability, as well as processes that value unlearning, studying, sharing and tooling together, as opposed to individual and competitive production and possession.
This process requires a constant subversion of the existing language we use and the creation of new languages and/or concepts. If anything, it is not for immediate understanding but, should be considered as an open invitation for collective study, collective invention, and rewriting.
This document provides the conceptual base as well as the practical mechanisms that have been defined collectively by the AC organizations up to this point in time.
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