Model of Collective Collaboration – Introducing the Islands of Kinship Project

This two-year collaboration (August 2022–August 2024) brought together seven mid-sized visual art institutions from across Europe — SJCh (Prague), Július Koller Society (Bratislava), The Faculty of Things That Can’t Be Learned (Bitola/Skopje), Temporary Gallery (Cologne), Frame (Helsinki), Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (Riga), and Stroom den Haag (The Hague).

The project emerged as a response to a shared urgency to rethink how art institutions function and to contribute to socially and environmentally responsible and sustainable institutional practices. Through this collaboration, we have introduced and reinforced ethical and methodological frameworks rooted in values and principles such as inclusion, diversity, equitable representation, solidarity, care, kinship, and belonging.

The main objective was to establish a long-term professional platform for co-creation, mutual learning, and the exchange of practices — both in terms of programming and institutional operations. We aim to extend the international conversation beyond artists and art professionals to include cultural institutions, non-profits, and individuals working in the fields of social and environmental justice, advocacy for marginalised communities, and support for culture and the arts among diverse social groups. We particularly seek to involve audiences and community members whose access to culture and the arts has been structurally limited due to systemic discrimination and marginalisation — not only as visitors, but as active co-creators, collaborators, organisers, and participants.

Alongside developing new practical tools for institutional transformation, the project also addressed urgent issues of belonging, justice, responsibility, and care through artistic strategies that respond to global environmental, political, and socioeconomic challenges.

Over the course of Islands of Kinship, we organised 21 exhibitions, 3 festivals, a summer school, and more than 40 public events, including workshops, performances, and discussions, grouped under four thematic frameworks: Kinship and Family in the 21st Century, New Agora, Inclusive Curatorial Strategies, and Beyond Ecology. In addition to the public programme, we also focused on strengthening the internal capacities of the participating institutions. In this context, we called attention to the importance of establishing the role of an inclusion and sustainability coordinator — a position we consider crucial not only for art institutions of the future, but for any organisation striving to operate in an ethically responsible and socially engaged manner.

At SJCh, this position is currently held by Nikola Ludlová, a historian and Romani studies scholar specialising in the inclusion of marginalised (primarily ethnic) communities. With this position in place, our team is able to embed inclusive and sustainable practices more deeply across all aspects of our programming — from communication and audience engagement (including language use in exhibition texts and targeted outreach), to accessibility (both physical and social), public engagement strategies, and environmentally conscious approaches to exhibition production and materials. SJCh is gradually developing a long-term strategy to integrate these values across all areas of its work, communication, and institutional development — collecting feedback and continuously refining our practices.

The discursive programme Conflicting Relations offered the audience perspectives from the Indigenous Sámi people of Finland on the notion of hospitality — and on the various forms of hostility and exclusion they continue to face in their own country.

Highlights of Our Capacity Building (2022–2024):

· Defined and filled the new role of Inclusion and Sustainability Coordinator
· Initiated a review of internal structures and processes from the perspective of inclusion and sustainability
· Introduced new methods of collective decision-making, internal communication, evaluation, and care
· Created space for knowledge sharing and learning through symposia, educational programmes, and the development of new systems, methodologies, and tools (shared via podcasts, manuals, and publications)
· Launched long-term strategies focused on environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable operations, institutional accessibility, audience development, and artist support
· Began systematically cultivating relationships with communities and specific audience segments

City as a Stage: Lost Modernistic Utopias is a long-term interdisciplinary art project built around the idea of cultivating a new, solidarity-based society. Through this discursive programme, FRU engages local communities, artists, representatives of local government, and experts with the aim of reimagining and renewing the values and functions of public space, culture, and solidarity — particularly in the context of global challenges such as social inequality and climate change.

The smallest brutalist structure in the area, known as Domche (the little house), served as a significant community centre in the 1960s. During this event, the building — both physically and symbolically — was transformed into a living “stage” for new performances and proposals for community programmes and political strategies.

In Terms of Programming and Exhibitions, We:

· Developed new exhibition formats addressing themes of kinship, sharing, and care (including site-specific and community-based exhibitions)
· Commissioned new artworks by artists engaged in environmental and social issues
· Prioritised diversity and fair representation across gender identities, cultural, ethnic, and health backgrounds, and lived experiences (including migration)
· Designed targeted approaches to increase programme accessibility for groups with specific needs, addressing entrenched ableism and disparities in cultural and social capital
· Embraced participatory methods and designed participatory formats that engaged audiences and community members as co-creators

Within Our Institutional Practice, We:

· Piloted a new model of international collaboration, including co-produced exhibitions
· Developed internal protocols for team organisation and partnerships with external stakeholders (e.g. access rider forms)
· Implemented inclusive communication strategies (inclusive language, plain language)
· Made care work and invisible labour within the cultural sector more visible
· Tested more equitable models of remuneration
· Introduced more flexible, less resource-intensive production methods and eco-conscious exhibition strategies
· Joined a network of institutions seeking alternatives to the competitive, performance-driven pressures of the cultural field

For a deeper look into our experience implementing inclusive and sustainable practices — as well as documentation of the artistic outcomes of this international collaboration — we recommend the publication Collective Manual for Inclusive and Sustainable Institutions. It features contributions from artists, curators, and inclusion/sustainability coordinators.

(Once available, a link to the publication will be added here.)

More about the network: network Islands of Kinship - official website Islands of Kinship.