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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Facing Bench

Facing Bench will be hosting screenings of Plain Language on October 23rd

Facing Bench is an interdisciplinary non-profit cultural foundation in Philadelphia dedicated to the arts, learning, and independent creative exchange. We prioritize projects concerned with experimentation, aesthetics, and critical discourse.

Facing Bench’s mission is to offer an evolving platform for idea exchange, social engagement, and sustainable practices, that de-centers higher-eduction institutions as the primary spaces of learning available to adult publics in Philadelphia. Our programming includes exhibitions, performances, workshops, lectures, culinary arts, thought experiments, and archives. We are committed to horizontal knowledge sharing that promotes slow looking, and close listening.

Collaborations are local, national, and international, while remaining attuned and committed to Philadelphia’s specific creative landscape.

facingbench.com

@facingbench

140 N 3rd street, philadelphia, pa 19106