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
  • 3rd Street Gallery
  • 5U Space
  • All Mutable
  • The Arts League
  • Asian Arts Initiative
  • AUTOMAT Collective
  • Batikh Batikh
  • The Bearded Ladies Cabaret
  • 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
  • errata projects
  • Facing Bench
  • Fairmount House
  • FJORD
  • Future Flower Collective
  • FORTUNE
  • Gravy Studio
  • Grizzly Grizzly
  • The Halide Project
  • Hall Pass
  • Icebox Project Space
  • Jane Gallery
  • Luster Gallery
  • Memory Workers Guild
  • Muse Gallery
  • Obvious Agency
  • Paradigm Gallery + Studio
  • Peep Projects
  • Pentimenti
  • People’s Music Supply
  • Pink Noise Projects
  • Practice
  • Prism Arts
  • Second State Press
  • Space 1026
  • Teils Studio
  • Termite TV Collective
  • Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia
  • Ulises
  • Umbria Arts
  • Vox Populi
  • The Wooden Shoe

Collective Futures is made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the PCI Catalyst Grant, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Free People and the Penn Treaty Special Services District (PTSSD).

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Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Muse Gallery

September 30 — November 1, 2026

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: A Collective Futures Exhibition
September 30th -November 1st 

Presented by Muse Gallery in conjunction with Philadelphia’s Collective Futures Festival, the exhibition celebrates the many ways artists build community, create opportunities, and imagine new possibilities beyond traditional art spaces.

VENTING COLLECTIVELY

Saturday, October 3 • 11 AM–3 PM
Rain Date: Sunday, October 18 • 2–4 PM

Venting Collectively is a cooperative art project creating a supportive and welcoming space for artists and non-artists alike to vent, share, rant, reflect, and express their fears, hopes, and thoughts

Art Is Everywhere –Panel Discussion

Sunday, October 11 • 2–4 PM

Join us for a conversation about the alternative and cooperative art scene in Philadelphia and how these spaces contribute to the city’s larger artistic community.

About Muse

Established late in 1977, the Muse Gallery is an artists’ cooperative dedicated to encourage and promote its members’ artistic expression through abstract, conceptual and representational forms. Reflecting an aesthetic that awakens awareness, the Muse Gallery affirms the shared experience of art between the artist and the community.