Bureau for Open Culture

Bureau for Open Culture is a nomadic institution for the contemporary arts. Our shape-shifting critical practice seeks to re-imagine the art exhibition as a means of social connectivity and learning. We utilize art as a vehicle for initiating relations among individuals, initiating new institutional behaviors by prioritizing the private alongside the public. Exhibitions take shape as installations, screenings, informal talks and performances and occur in parking lots, storefronts, libraries, industrial sites, country roads, gardens and galleries. They respond to topics related to these situations, operating in real time, connecting with real people. In doing so we generate platforms for learning and knowledge production that make ideas accessible, relevant and inviting for diverse audiences. This model encourages overlaps of art, science, ecology, the built environment, philosophy and design. Form, content and site are underlining points of criticality for Bureau for Open Culture.

To realize this work, we initiate and nurture collaborations with institutions. Our exhibitions function, in part, as explorations of the social, economic and political conditions of specific sites as well as ongoing critical inquiry into the role of the institution in the production and dissemination of art. Bureau for Open Culture unites emerging and established artists and researchers from national and international contexts with local constituents. We embrace the less than predictable, welcome the less than established and are drawn to the not always fully prepared. We believe uncertainty is a valuable space for experimentation.