Event: WE CANNOT WAIT FOR OUR FUTURE ART INSTITUTIONS, National College of Art and Design (Gallery), Dublin.

‘The dominant system doesn’t dominate because most people agree with it, it dominates because we can’t imagine an alternative’ (Duncombe and Lambert, 2021: 319).

“WE CANNOT WAIT FOR OUR FUTURE ART INSTITUTIONS” is both a statement and a demand that responds to the urgency of the polycrisis the art institution faces. It is also a refusal. It refuses to accept that there is no alternative, that we cannot imagine things otherwise.

The participants will debate emergent practices and make propositions for the future art institution that encompass values that are anathema to those that shape our current cultural policies. These alternative values include (but are not limited to): collectivity, solidarity, sustainability, study, the undercommons, situated knowledge and infrastructural critique.

Participants:
Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Curator, Laboratory for the Urban Commons (LUC), Athens
Marysia Więckiewicz, Curator, Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Anne Kelly, Curator, NCAD Gallery, Dublin
Moderator: Emma Mahony, Lecturer in Visual Culture, NCAD, Dublin.

Speaker Information

Xenia Kalpaktsoglou is an Athens-based researcher, curator, and co-founding member of the architectural and artistic research collective, Laboratory for the Urban Commons / Neo Cosmos. Her practice is rooted in collective curatorial methodologies, and the active engagement with independent artistic initiatives as a means of re-negotiating production and exchange protocols between cultural producers and institutions. She co-founded the Athens Biennale, independent non-profit organisation, which she co-directed until 2016. During that time, she was actively involved in curating and coordinating exhibitions and projects for the organisation, primarily as part of the curatorial trio XYZ, but also with other temporary curatorial formations. Her curatorial work includes the early editions Destroy Athens (2007) and MONODROME (2011) among others. Since 2016, she has focused on artistic research and education, lecturing in programmes (including the Sandberg Instituut / Dirty Art Department, and the Zurich University of the Arts/ Shared Campus- Transcultural Collaboration programme) and collaborating in research projects on independent art initiatives (most recently via SpaceX – Spatial Practices in Art and Architecture for Empathetic Exchange, with the University of Coventry (2023–25). https://www.neocosmos.gr

Marysia Więckiewicz, Curator of Visual Arts Marysia Więckiewicz (she/her) is a curator & art writer. Her curatorial practice focuses on providing care & support to artists in the development & production of exhibitions. She values establishing meaningful & long-term engagements with artists, supporting their practice via innovative channels of distribution & dissemination & by commissioning new work. Marysia has organised numerous exhibitions & projects in Ireland & abroad with various institutions & local authorities, including Wyspa Institute of Art, The Hugh Lane Gallery, The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Temple Bar Gallery + Studios & Wexford Arts Centre. She has worked in curatorial roles at The Hugh Lane & IMMA. She was the founding director & curator of Berlin Opticians Gallery which supported & exhibited artistic practices both online & in unconventional spaces. She co-edited Paper Visual Art Journal (PVA) between 2014-2018 & received grant support from the Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland. https://projectartscentre.ie/

Anne Kelly, cultural practitioner, is the Curator at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (NCAD, 2011-) where she operates the NCAD Gallery with particular emphasis on transdisciplinary integrated public programming aligned to institution-specific research directions, the commissioning of new work and the fostering of collaborative and co-creative partnerships. Additionally, working cross-departmentally as a thesis tutor and lecturing on the School of Visual Culture elective programme. 
She is a National College of Art and Design, Dublin, BA Fine Art and Trinity College Dublin MSc Comp Sci Multimedia Systems graduate, and recipient of Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, CREATE: National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts, and County Council artist practice funding awards.

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The WE CANNOT WAIT FOR OUR FUTURE ART INSTITUTIONS event is programmed as part of INSTITUTING COMMONING: A PLATFORM FOR UN/LEARNING, an exhibition programme bringing together a network of artistic and academic practices through the exchange of viewpoints, and the creation of new social bonds, 30 January - 27 February, 2026, Mon-Fri, 11AM - 6PM. Curated by Anne Kelly and programmed with Dr Emma Mahony, Michelle Browne, Gareth Kennedy, Dr Tom O'Dea, Seoidín O'Sullivan, and Dr Fiona Whelan. Find the full events programme at this LINK.

INSTITUTING COMMONING: A PLATFORM FOR UN/LEARNING
EXHIBITING PRACTITIONERS
Richard A. Carter | Michele Horrigan | Ameera Kawash 
with Studio Bark's U-Build modular system.

Historically, ‘the commons’ was used to describe an area of land that was neither public nor private. It described a common resource for anybody to use under certain rules, usually developed by a vested community.(1) Much of what was the historical commons is private property today, a process which began in the Eighteenth Century with The Enclosure Movement. Contemporary society has seen newer enclosures of the commons that encompass intellectual property, language, seeds and genetic material. In response there has been a resurgence of commoning led by commoners calling for a more livable set of economic, social and political conditions. These commoners are experimenting with methods of organising social production differently, in ways that forefront mutual care, equality and social justice. (2)

In programming Instituting Commoning: A Platform for Un/Learning in the NCAD Gallery, we define our use of the term ‘commoning’ in this contemporary rediscovery of the meaning of 'the commons' and its governance.(3)

Instituting Commoning: A Platform for Un/Learning brings together a network of artistic and academic practices through the exchange of viewpoints, the sharing of resources and the creation of new social bonds. The conceptual framework for exhibition and programme has been conceived through an attempt to materially platform or occupy the institutional Gallery space as a 'commons' – made manifest through demarcated floor markings and built raised platform using elements of Studio Bark’s U-Build modular system. The platform is an inclusionary space that frames artworks by Richard A. Carter, Michele Horrigan, and Ameera Kawash and will also be used to stage event-based interactions, process-based work, workshops, symposium, housing activists and community group meetings, pedagogical un/learning workshops, and specific 'commoning' research threads from NCAD Staff members: Michelle Browne, Anne Kelly, Gareth Kennedy, Dr Emma Mahony, Dr Tom O'Dea, Seoidín O'Sullivan, and Dr Fiona Whelan. The staff involved have recently completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Horizon 2020 EU Staff Exchange research action entitled, Spatial Practices in Art and Architecture for Empathetic Exchange (SpaceX-Rise), 2022–26, and some of the events have been directly inspired by their research. Link:.SpaceX-RISE.

1. Fountedaki, Eirini & Pronger, Rachel. 'What is Commons? A Conversation with Stavros Stavrides', Foyer Conversations: Cinema of Commoning [podcast], Monday, June 24, 2024. Season 1, Ep. 1. Accessed 01.01.2026. Link
2. Federici, Silvia. (2004) Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
3. Ostrom, Elinor. (1991), Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions). Cambridge Uni Press.

Curated by Anne Kelly and programmed with Dr Emma Mahony, Michelle Browne, Gareth Kennedy, Dr Tom O'Dea, Seoidín O'Sullivan, and Dr Fiona Whelan.