Amid growing climate concerns and shifting urban dynamics, ACPs have emerged as vital experimental grounds for sustainable living, grassroots democracy, and community-led transformation. These independent, artist-run spaces often operate on the peripheries—geographically, economically, and politically—yet their impact on local ecosystems and cultural innovation is profound.

Alter-Places recognizes the urgent need to support and amplify these contributions by equipping ACPs with knowledge, visibility, and tools to thrive sustainably and collectively in increasingly precarious environments.

Objectives

Support Ecological and Social Sustainability:
Develop practical tools and shared methodologies that help ACPs implement environmentally responsible and socially inclusive practices.

Empower Cultural Spaces as Civic Actors:
Reinforce the role of ACPs as key agents in civic engagement, offering inclusive platforms for public dialogue and collective imagination.

Facilitate Transnational Exchange:
Create opportunities for peer learning, mentorship, and collaborative research across cultural contexts and geographic regions.

Activities

Survey and Research Phase:
Led by LabEx ICCA, this phase collects and maps sustainable strategies across ACPs in Europe to identify common challenges, needs, and innovations.

Transnational Meetings and Workshops:
Organized in partner cities (Tartu, Malmö, Zagreb, Berlin, and Paris), these gatherings foster exchange between cultural practitioners, activists, and researchers.

Capacity Building:
A series of trainings, shadowing programs, and toolkits designed to build long-term sustainability within ACPs.

Pilot Actions:
Implementation of localized sustainability initiatives in participating cultural spaces to test, evaluate, and disseminate best practices.

Supported by:
Creative Europe Programme of the European Union