Project Partners
La Escocesa
Barcelona, Spain
La Escocesa is a contemporary visual arts organization and residency space managed collectively through the artists’ association Associació d’Idees EMA. We focus on supporting artists and cultural agents, offering workspaces and resources for the development of their projects. We provide studios and workshops for over thirty resident artists, alongside a free public program of events, open calls, and training opportunities. As a space inhabited by the artistic community, we focus not only on the production and creation of works but also on the mutual generation of knowledge, networks of care, and new ways of building and operating cultural institutions. The associative nature of the center enables the active participation of the artists, generating the horizontal collective structure through which the center is managed. As a feminist institution, our values arise from an intersectional, emancipatory, cooperative, and inclusive position, which advocates for sustainability, experimentation, collaboration, and the development of community artistic projects. We understand our values not only as a series of statements but as commitments that must be put into practice through a collective process of constant learning and reflection.
In the framework of Art Space Unlimited, La Escocesa developed Trenza, a mediation program designed by the Lumbre collective. Its aim is to create an open call for La Escocesa to become a home for communities that do not currently inhabit it. Trenza focuses on migrants from the Global South who are involved in the production and practice of art and culture and who, due to structural inequalities, are not yet part of the city’s contemporary art circuit. The proposal is organized into three threads: Fire, Earth, and Alliances. These threads, separate, but interdependent, aim are meant to be woven within and around the community that inhabits La Escocesa in order to establish alliances.
OFF-Biennale
Budapest, Hungary
OFF-Biennale Budapest is a grassroots initiative that provides a platform for progressive, critical contemporary visual art. Within the last ten years OFF-Biennale has established itself as the largest independent contemporary art event in Hungary. It aims to strengthen the local independent art scene and contribute to the public discourse on social, political, and environmental issues, with the intention of promoting a culture of democracy through art. In a political climate not conducive to civil and cultural self-organization and activism, OFF remained one of the few art NGOs in Budapest still actively working on creating and maintaining ground for free speech, reinforcing independence, and prefiguring a model for a transparent and autonomous art institution which gains resilience from its wide-ranging local and international networks.
In the framework of OFF-Biennale 2025 we invited Recetas Urbanas—an international collective of architects and activists—for a collaboration in Budapest. Based on their methodology promoting socially engaged architecture through participatory design and community inclusion, we will realize a community architecture project together with local civic organizations and communities in the multicultural neighborhood of District VIII, at Kálvária Square. The planned structure will not only be codesigned and constructed with the participants, but they will also determine its function and operation growing out of their needs and visions, turning deficits into opportunities. The construction, which also reflects on the central theme of OFF 2025, is more than just a physical structure—it is a process. Since December 2024, workshops and collaborative events have been bringing together different communities that live in, work in, and use the neighborhood: local Romani communities, district civic groups, migrants and refugees, and children and adults from disadvantaged backgrounds.
< rotor >
Budapest, Hungary
Founded in 1999, < rotor > Centre for Contemporary Art is based in Graz, Austria. The institution’s program is grounded in the visual arts and focuses on artistic works that explicitly deal with social, political, ecological, and economic issues of the present day. The independent art center is structured as an association and pursues an educational mission. Mediation to a broad public is therefore of great importance. Promoting cooperation and networked action are essential elements of the < rotor > philosophy. This concerns networking efforts within the art field but also the involvement of people and organizations from different backgrounds. The search for convincing methods of collaboration and possibilities of participation in artistic processes is another topic of importance. An important concern is the inclusion of people who previously had little access to contemporary art. For < rotor >, the public space is an important setting to make art happen. The action of leaving the art space is used to promote and review artistic practices in front of a wider public, to publicly negotiate relevant themes, and to actively bring people into contact with art.
As part of Art Space Unlimited, < rotor > has intensified the collaboration between artists and cultural workers and several target audience groups. The projects carried out were aimed in particular at women, children and young adults, and people with migration backgrounds. In three consecutive exhibitions, some of the artworks presented were produced in a participatory manner, and workshops and art education programs were also offered. The exhibition Wild Spots was about the relationship between city dwellers and “wild nature”; for SEDIMENT, Turkish-Kurdish artists and curators focused on endangered riverscapes; and Mostly Mined Out reflected on the war-induced migration of Ukrainians.
Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17)
Prishtina, Kosovo
Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17) is a cultural foundation based in Prishtina, Kosovo, dedicated to fostering social change through artistic and educational initiatives. Established in 2018, it envisions a society where all citizens participate freely and meaningfully in public life through culture, education, and activism. The foundation’s work focuses on cultural activism, public space, policymaking, advocacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and human rights. Operating through its key spaces—Galeria 17 and Rezidenca 17—Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17) serves as a hub for education, activism, and bold artistic exploration.
In the framework of Art Space Unlimited and as part of its commitment to inclusive cultural mediation, Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17) has facilitated exhibitions and community events such as Queer Ecology, an exhibition exploring environmental issues through queer theory, a poetry workshop on queer narratives, and a hands-on session on recycled paper as a medium for artistic expression. By creating spaces for collective learning and critical engagement, the program strengthens connections between art, activism, and local communities.
tranzit.cz
Prague, Czech Republic
The initiative for contemporary art tranzit.cz was founded in 2002 in Prague, Czech Republic. The initiative organizes exhibitions, artist and curatorial residencies, and discursive programs, all with the aim of contributing to the accessible and participatory development of critical culture. Since 2020 tranzit.cz has been organizing the Biennale Matter of Art and since 2023 a biannual festival of performance art as well. In 2017 tranzit.cz initiated the creation of the Code of Feminist (Art) Institutions. tranzit.cz has also published Czech translations of texts from the fields of critical theory, philosophy, art theory, feminism, and prose (by authors such as McKenzie Wark, Sophia Giovannitti, Sophie Lewis, Audre Lorde, Frantz Fanon, Bruno Latour, Marcel Duchamp, and others).
As part of the project Art Space Unlimited, tranzit.cz organized a series of mediation workshops and a summer camp for children ages 9 to 14. These events were a part of the Biennale Matter of Art 2024. The mediation project entitled The Great Land of Small aimed to help children from various social backgrounds find a distinctive way to think about art and exhibitions and gain the confidence to express their own opinions. Children experimented with various ways of capturing and sharing their thoughts, opinions, dreams, and ideas—from audio recordings to newspaper contributions to drawings. Participants were guided by the artists and educators Eva Koťátková, Bára Šimková, Mary C, Magda Stojowska, and Tadeáš Polák. The project resulted in the publication of the children’s newspaper This Is Not Baloney, which comprised interviews, reports, drawings, and photos created by the children.