Infrastructures and Forms of Community in Informal Art Spaces in a Global Context.
Two-part conference in Cologne (4 November 2026) and Munich (1–2 December 2026).

The two-part conference “Infrastructures and Forms of Community in Informal Art Spaces in a Global Context” hosted by the “connecting – excluding: Cultural Dynamics Beyond Globalized Networks” research training group at the University of Cologne and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg global dis:connect at the LMU Munich addresses the infrastructure of art spaces and smaller organisations and their impact on the formation of social communities. The conference will discuss the infrastructural prerequisites (technical, material, immaterial, economic) of establishing alternative art spaces. From a global perspective, we are interested in structures of self-organisation (shared/parallel uses, informal infrastructures), curation (collective, creative as well as resistant processes), instituting practices (consolidation of informal infrastructures) and distribution (publishers, independent printing companies). Non-institutionalised spaces are likely a necessary starting point for political liberation through art. To what extent do non-institutionalised art spaces have emancipatory and/or decolonising effects, and how are they networked internationally? What forms of community arise from the practice of alternative institutions, organisations and initiatives? What frictions emerge between informal and institutionalised spaces and in the relationship between (local) impact and (global) perception? How are neighbourhoods activated or commons enabled? What contributions do these communities make in a post-migrant society? What is their emancipatory content? Where do strategic connections and systemic exclusions take place?
These and other questions will be the subject of lectures and discussions at the two-day event in Cologne on 4 November 2026 and in Munich in 1–2 December 2026.

4 November 2026, Cologne

Institutionalisation as Active Participation in Migrant and Decolonial Contexts
Repräsentationssaal, Klosterstr. 79b, 50931 Cologne

10.00
Welcome: Nina Möntmann (Cologne)
Introduction: Burcu Dogramaci (Munich) und Nina Möntmann (Cologne)

10.15
Anna Brus (Cologne)
Working within Constraints: Independent Art Spaces, transnational Networks and Knowledge Rehabilitation in Cameroon

11.00
Sophie Eisenried (Munich)
(An) Institutionalisation of Arts in the periphery

11.45
Erden Kosova (Berlin)
‘Manicured hands will wind coils’

12.30
Lunch break

14.00
Mona Schieren (Paris/Bremen)
On the edge of institution, Centre Saint Charles Paris

14.45
Aline Hernández (Utrecht)
Hidden Arts: What do we make when no one sees us

15.30
Coffee break

16.00
Giovanna Esposito Yussif (Helsinki)
Where does poetry nest?

16.45
Closing Discussion, Chair: Charlotte Püttmann (Cologne)

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1–2 December 2026, Munich
Infrastructures and forms of community in informal art spaces in a global context

1 December
17.00
Visit to art spaces in Munich (Habibi Kiosk and Kunstraum München, hosted by Sophie Eisenried, Lena von Geyso and Angela Stiegler)

2 December
Käte Hamburger Kolleg global dis:connect, Maria-Theresia-Str. 21, 81675 Munich, Library

9.30
Burcu Dogramaci (Munich) and Nina Möntmann (Cologne)
Welcome & Introduction

10.00
Ana Ereš (Belgrad)
Infrastructures of Experimentation: Curatorial Agency and Alternative Institutional Practices in Socialist Yugoslavia

10.45
Agnes Stillger (Cologne)
Reweaving the Ground: Curating Situated Knowledge and Community in Dakar

11.30
Coffee break

12.00
Ursula Ströbele (Braunschweig)
International Sculpture Symposia as temporary art spaces and infrastructural sites of entanglements. Alina Szapocznikow – A case study

12.45
Sabeth Buchmann (Vienna)
Between functional sites and artistic infrastructures

13.30
Lunch break

14.30
Sascia Bailer (Freiburg)
Roadmap for an Otherwise: Collectively Building Caring Infrastructures

15.15
Joanna Warsza (Hamburg)
From the Cosmos to the Commons – from dreaming to the hands-on practices. On art, activism and community dilemmas

16.00
Michael Klipphahn-Karge (Leipzig)
Gray Spaces. Paracultures in Informal Art Spaces in the Global GDR and their Afterlives

16.45
Closing remarks & farewell

Concept and Organisation: Burcu Dogramaci (Munich) & Nina Möntmann (Cologne)

Please register for the Cologne workshop until Oct 25 at charlotte.puettmannuni-koeln.de

Please register for the Munich workshop until Nov 25 via this link: https://www.globaldisconnect.org/events/registration. Kindly note that we have limited availability at Habibi Kiosk and Kunstraum on December 1 at 17.00 and you will receive an email to confirm your participation.

For more information, please see the event announcement for the workshop in Cologne (https://kunst.uni-koeln.de/event/institutionalisation-as-active-participation/) and Munich (https://www.globaldisconnect.org/10/07/infrastructures-and-forms-of-community/) respectively.