U? is launching a Monthly Reading Group

Wednesday Jul 9th 2025

Over the past several years, we've been actively reflecting (both internally and in dialogue with various collaborators) on how the relationships between (cultural) institutions and grassroots organizations, collectives and communities can be more thoughtfully nurtured. We recognize that these relationships require careful and sustained attention.

With that in mind, we’re opening up a monthly reading group, not as a fixed program, but as a shared space to gather, reflect and think alongside one another.

Each month, we’ll come together to explore questions that matter to the people in the room: How can we build collaborations that are non-extractive and non-hierarchical between grassroots initiatives and institutions? What practices, emotions or experiences hold us together as communities? And in a world that increasingly feels disconnected, how can we find ways to stay in touch in a human way?

The reading groups will take place every last Thursday of the month, hosted at our office in Utrecht (Helling 150). The first session will be on Thursday 31 July at 5:30 PM, hosted by the U? team.

We warmly invite our extended network: artists and creators, venue partners, current and former community curators, independent curators we’ve worked with, as well as anyone curious to join.

For this session, we’ll read the Introduction of Curating with Care by Elke Krasny and Lara Perry. This text will be published on our website soon.

Going forward, we hope each session will be hosted by someone different - an individual, collective or community - bringing in materials they’ve been working with or thinking through. The text or media can reflect ongoing research, lived experience or a question you’ve been sitting with. It doesn’t need to be academic, in fact, we welcome all forms: book chapters, zines, sound clips, choreography, video excerpts, poems, conversations.

Each session will have two parts:

Engaging with the material (reading, listening, watching, approx. 20 minutes)
Open conversation and exchange (building on what we’ve just experienced together)

These conversations will be lightly documented by the U? team and shared in an open-access archive, always with full respect for participants’ privacy and anonymity. We’ll have coffee, tea, a thoughtful text and good company. Each gathering will last about 1 to 1.5 hours.

We hope this space becomes one where we can learn from one another, be moved by each other’s words and grow — together.

To hold that intention, we ask everyone to enter the conversation with care: with respect for each other’s voices, a critical lens that uplifts rather than harms and a listening ear that makes space for pauses, hesitations and differences.

Interested in joining? You can register here.

Would you be willing to host the next session? Reach out, we’d love to hear from you.

Artwork by Tonya Belugina

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