about
Collective Futures
is a six-week, citywide project activating Philadelphia’s network of artist-run spaces, DIY venues, and community-based initiatives. This collaboratively organized project bringing together more than 30 independent spaces and organizations, Collective Futures will unfold across the city through exhibitions, performances, workshops, and public programs from Kensington and North Chinatown to West Philadelphia, Fishtown, and Old City, between October 2 and November 15, 2026.

At its core, Collective Futures centers collective practice as a vital mode of cultural production. Across disciplines and contexts, the project highlights how artists come together to build shared platforms, experiment with new forms, and sustain creative communities.

Taking place during the 250th anniversary of the so-called United States, while many institutions in Philadelphia conjure programming around the complex histories of nation-building and democracy, Collective Futures highlights the artistic experimentation and alternative models that grassroots cultural spaces have long been building

Collective Futures is grounded in the specific conditions of Philadelphia, where a rich ecosystem of artist-run and DIY spaces has made collaborative cultural production possible. As rising costs and development reshape the city, the project affirms the importance of collective cultural life and the infrastructures that sustain it, so that our work can mobilize resources, deepen connections, and envision transformative futures.

Collective Futures is:

  • 2C Books / Marginal Utility
  • 5U Space
  • The Arts League
  • Asian Arts Initiative
  • AUTOMAT Collective
  • Batikh Batikh
  • Big Ramp
  • Biomaterials Working Group
  • BYO printmaking collaborative
  • Center for Emerging Visual Artists
  • Cherry St Pier
  • cinéSPEAK
  • City Arts Salon LLC
  • Da Vinci Art Alliance
  • Fable Encounters
  • Fairmount House
  • FJORD
  • Future Flower Collective
  • FORTUNE
  • Gravy Studio
  • Grizzly Grizzly
  • Hall Pass
  • Icebox Project Space
  • Luster Gallery
  • Muse Gallery
  • Paradigm Gallery + Studio
  • Peep Projects
  • Pentimenti
  • People’s Music Supply
  • Pink Noise Projects
  • Practice
  • Second State Press
  • Space 1026
  • Termite TV Collective
  • Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia
  • Ulises
  • Umbria Arts
  • Vox Populi

Made possible with the support of the Penn Treaty Special Services District (PTSSD).

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Prism Arts Philadelphia

In our highly adaptable space on Hamilton Street in the middle of the Arts District in Philadelphia, Prism Arts, a full-time gallery and an art performance space, is aiming to bring together emerging and established artists from different fields such as photography, painting, sculpture, theater, literature and dance. We seek opportunities to collaborate with like-minded artists to bring their ideas to fruition, and provide a unique space for private events benefiting the vast community of Philadelphia.

We welcome innovative art and ideas, across all mediums, with the intention in lowering the socioeconomic barriers that emerging artists face as we believe that access to art is not a privilege but a right that should be provided to everyone.