Third Decade on the Scene
Resources of Artistic Collaboration.
How Is Collective Practice Becoming Professionalized? 

11. 9. 2023 from 6 pm

guests: BCAA system (Šimon Levitner), Comunite Fresca (Dana Balážová), Vojtěch Märc, Zuzana Štefková
host: Markéta Mansfieldová

Collective work is gaining ground on the contemporary art scene. Collectives are winning art awards, curating major art shows, and getting into the leadership of art organizations. Creating in a collective is becoming a strategy for disrupting the established institutional operation, a way out of the individualism of a commodity-oriented society. In collectives, artists meet theorists, architects, designers and other professionals, creating innovative art projects with significant academic and social overlap. The Czech art scene is also witnessing the growing importance of collectives, the interdisciplinary works of which connect different disciplines, media and creative strategies. However, only few of these newly emerging groups survive in the long term in the non-profit cultural sector that fails to provide basic social and economic security. In addition to precarious functioning, contemporary collectives face a number of other challenges that make it difficult to establish collective practice as a sustainable part of artistic operations.

This discussion will focus on issues related to the professionalization of collective artistic practice on the Czech art scene. What are the motivations for being part of a collective and what forms its basis? What organizational strategies ensure the sustainable functioning of the collective? And what support should collectives receive from educational, grant and exhibition institutions? 

The CCA programs are possible through kind support of Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Prague City Council, State Fund of Culture of the Czech Republic, City District Prague 7, GESTOR – The Union for the Protection of Authorship
Partners: Kostka stav
Media support: ArtMap, jlbjlt.net, artalk.cz