A collaborative publication from our 2021 Alternate Currents cohort Given All This: Collective Institutional Futures features research and work by cohort members in response to broad questions around the theme of ‘Institutional Futures’ – Questions about institutional critique, arts economies, organizational hierarchies, cultural labor, and museum collections and archives. Cohort member projects are punctuated by transcriptions of Alternate Currents panel discussions from 2021.

The publication is presented in three overlapping and interlocking thematic sections. Part 1: Who Needs Who the Most? questions the relationship between artists and cultural institutions. Part 2: The Labor of Care explores concerns around ethical relationships with food, each other, and our bodies. Part 3: This Land… leaves us with unresolved questions, as a common thread of discussions throughout the year was learning about the City of Omaha as an Indigenous place.

Given the pandemic, given renewed calls for racial equity and justice, given the accelerated impacts of a changing climate – all this – the collected works in this publication are not offered as “solutions” to institutional failings, but rather as invitations to more critically examine the ways in which our cultural institutions might become a collective commons to question where we’ve been, how we’ve changed, and what the future might hold.

Your purchase will support Alternate Currents programming.

2021 Alternate Currents Cohort: Corson Androski, Katie Bettin, Jody Boyer, Allegra Hangen, Lex Jonae, Jared Packard, Ilaamen Pelshaw, Sarah Rowe, Lillian Snortland, and Jose Trejo-Maya