Creative Europe
Desk UK
for Culture

Practice International is a partnership between Iniva, Casco-Office for Art, Design and Theory (Utrecht) and Iaspis (Stockholm) exploring the changing role of European arts organisations in relation to global art practice.

Practice International is born out of a recognised need for European art institutions to re-think their modes of operation. An increasingly internationalised art world, dominated by biennials and art fairs that prioritize speed of transmission over sustained engagement, poses challenges to the structure and purpose of the European art institution. Practice International will look to artistic practice in order to help us think through these issues.

This project (Singular States) examines a group of artists from Europe and abroad who have created their own independent spaces through which they are able to take control of the way that their practice is produced and presented. These ‘singular states’ may be physical, conceptual or in the form of a network, but they all share the common characteristics of enabling the artist a medium through which they can negotiate with the world from a position of relative autonomy. This project asks if the inventiveness, singularity, and breaks with convention that are associated with such artist initiatives can provide inspiration or possible models for our own ways of working as European art organisations.

Practice International takes place through a number of activities. It launched with a major workshop in Stockholm, followed by a period of research and exchange with and between a selected group of artists. The second year of the project will involve a public sharing of our findings with the widest possible audience during a year-long programme of exhibitions, events, screenings, a conference and through the production of a publication.

By exploring the practices of an extraordinary group of artists, Practice International will arrive at a set of strategies to support the development of European art institutions. As much as offering ways forward, the project will also lead to a shared understanding, at a European level, of the challenges, changes and tasks that art institutions must undergo in order to secure their future.

IMAGE: Issa Samb: From the Ethics of Acting to the Empire Without Signs (Photographer: Thierry Bal)