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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The Halide Project

The Halide Project is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the continued practice and appreciation of film and historic process photography. Based in the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia, The Halide Project serves the local and global photography communities through exhibitions, educational programming (both in-person and virtual), collaborations with other organizations, and our community darkroom, which has a B&W darkroom, film processing area, and a dim room for alternative/historic process work.

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