This session will look back at the experience and legacies of RESHAPE, a transnational project that sought to imagine alternative organizational models for the arts sector, to align them with artistic practices and the evolutions of society. Grounded in the needs, expertise and creativity of artists and activists, RESHAPE was an experimental, bottom-up, community-led attempt to imagine and inspire a different arts sector. It discussed, confronted and challenged the inequalities, power relations and extractive practices that dominate the arts world and looked at possible alternatives, rooted in fairness, solidarity and care. Through the experience of RESHAPE and the ideas that came out of the process, we will discuss the sector’s necessary transformation and the strategies for making artists and art workers agents of its positive future.

Coordination: Milica Ilic, coordinator and one of the initiators of RESHAPE (Servia, France, Belgium)
Speakers:
Petr Dlouhy, Artist, Reshaper (Czech Republic, Germany, Poland)
Doreen Toutikian, Founding Director of Beirut Design Week, Co-founder & President of the Board of MENA Design Research Center (Lebanon)