Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons is an experimental arts platform where art is platformed to invite specific visions of the future of society. Art and “the commons” are two key aspects of Casco’s practice, which serve as tools and models for non-capitalistic ways of living together collaboratively and collectively. Casco Art Institute works to support this vision by creating a space or “Casco,” in Dutch— essentially a basic structure for implementing change, co-exploration, and study with collective art projects as well as organizational experiments. The institute co-develops collectivized art projects out of critical questions and radical imagination, aimed at challenging normative structures of society and power. Initiatives are process-based and place-specific, forming community from the generation of art and knowledge as common resources. Organizational experiments take place within all these projects, including the organization of Casco Art Institute itself. In essence, Casco’s mission is to offer an example of a commonly desirable institution of art and the commons that embodies diversity, equity, pluralism, and sustainability.