Get Involved 

Participating in our activities

All of the collective art projects and organizational processes we engage in are open to active participation from anyone who shares values around the commons and responsibility. Anyone with curiosity can experience multiple activities and publicly available common resources from the projects, in person, and in community with Casco. For inquiries regarding our current and upcoming participatory activities, please get in touch and we will process your question accordingly. 

Collective Pot

Donate to our collective pot! Thanks to your financial contribution, we are less dependent on government support and funds to research, practice and situate art for the commons. As a donor you support an art platform exploring socially critical and self-critical art practices that focus on issues that affect different communities worldwide and require a necessary paradigm shift. Issues in which the imagination of art and artists play an essential role. To learn more about our foundation and what a donation entails, check out our Legal page and get in touch. 

Volunteering at Casco

During our exhibitions and events, both in the productional and public phases, we are thriving due to the kind help and energy by our pool of volunteers. As a volunteer, you help with the build up of the exhibition, support the team during public moments, host the venue, help distribute promotional material and gather resources, for example. It is also an active learning space to get to know Casco, and see the workings of our art institution from the inside. Many of our volunteers have later become team members or remained close connections in our ecosystem. There is always a modest volunteering fee available for your contributions. Are you interested in joining when help is needed? 

Use of space

As an institute that works for the commons, we are constantly developing ways to make our resources and infrastructure accessible to others. Therefore, we offer both our office and exhibition space to host meetings and activities after consultation with the team and our building’s ongoing calendar. Several groups and initiatives in our ecosystem frequently use the space, which welcomes anyone that needs space to organize something resonating with our mission, and vision. There is no rental involved – depending on the type of collaborating organization, we handle a sliding scale principle for donating to our Collective Pot.

In Our Network

Arts Collaboratory (AC) is a translocal ecosystem consisting of 25 diverse organizations around the world focused on art practices, processes of social change, and working with broader communities beyond the field of art. Since its founding in 2007 Arts Collaboratory not only provides financial support to socially and politically engaged art initiatives from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, but also acts as a unique collaborative platform for knowledge sharing and alternative community building among these initiatives. 

Arts Collaboratory’s current network consists of the following organizations: 32° | East Ugandan Arts Trust, Al Ma’mal, Ashkal Alwan, Casco Art Institute: Working For The Commons, Cooperativa Cráter Invertido, Darb 1718, DOEN Foundation, Doual’art, Fundación Casa Tres Patios, KËR THIOSSANE, Kiosko, KUNCI Study Forum & Collective, Lugar A Dudas, Más Arte Más Acción, NUBUKE FOUNDATION, Plateforme CSA, Platohedro, Raw Material Company, RIWAQ- Centre For Architectural Conservation, Ruangrupa, TEOR/ÉTica, Theater 705, Theertha, Visual Arts Network Of South Africa and WAZA.

Read more on the Arts Collaboratory website.

Founded in November 2020, AndersUtrecht aims to develop a network to enable and strengthen collaboration among initiatives working towards sustainability and social change in the Utrecht region. AndersUtrecht works from the belief that urban initiatives have profound transformative potential. From formal associations and social enterprises to citizen movements and neighborhood initiatives, each has a role to play in realizing a socially just and sustainable society.

AndersUtrecht’s current network consists of the following organizations: Amelisweerd Niet Geasfalteerd, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Centrum EMMA, De Weggeefwinkel, Economy for the Common Good, Milieucentrum Utrecht, Repair Café Utrecht, Taste Before You Waste Utrecht, Tuin Kansrijk, Utrecht Natuurlijk, Vereniging Dwarsverband, Villa Vrede, VOKO Utrecht and Wijk C Stroom.

Read more on the AndersUtrecht website.

The Dutch Art Institute is an itinerant program that fosters a variety of praxes at the intersections of art and theory (both seen as un-disciplines), and invigorates (collective) thinking, researching, performing, curating, writing, voicing, making and publishing. DAI’s Roaming Academy is acclaimed for its inventive modus operandi, its generous semi-public program and the transformative potentiality of its curriculum, developed in long time co-operation with a precise selection of imaginative cultural collectives/organizations as well as with individual practitioners and researchers at the forefront of artistic and intellectual inquiry, context, production and distribution.

Every year, Casco Art Institute is one of DAI’s collaborators to host a COOP study group. COOP study groups are at the heart of their curriculum. Its collective enquiry asks for active participation in and productive contributions to curated, cooperative, un-disciplined, art research trajectories. These study groups bring makers, researchers, writers and curators together around well-defined and relevant questions and topics. 

Read more via the DAI website.

ReadingRoom, a local Terra Critica practice in Utrecht with the collaboration of Casco Art Institute,  is open to anyone interested in careful close readings. It strives to create an open and inclusive space for substantial and meaningful conversations in the humanities, the arts and beyond. In the face of the current pressure for applied science and socio-economic profitability, reading and its crystallizing of critical questions are skills to refine in order to sharpen our understanding of and practicing in this world. We understand reading as an active intervention into our present, a shared practice that sharpens our senses and enables new affective communities. 

Read more on the Terra Critica website.

C4R (Cultures for Resilience) is a pan-European project aiming to foster resilient and inclusive societies by developing participatory cultural practices of resilience and ensuring social transversality. The C4R project was initiated through a collaboration of Casco Art Institute, Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée, AAA/Paris, tranzit.ro/Bucharest, and NetHood in 2020. 

Read more on the C4R website.

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