Institutional experiments in urban relationality: repairing the social bond in capitalist urbanism

Abstract

Isolation and loneliness have become characteristic of capitalist cities where spaces for sociality, connection, and togetherness are few and far between, supplanted by an abundance of artificial “pseudo-social spaces” mediated by capital. This social fracture at the heart of contemporary urbanism is an urban-spatial extension of sociality’s degradation and economic capture under capitalist production. For many urban Marxist scholars, urbanization is a process now characterized by the commons’ continuous appropriation and annihilation by private interests. Arguably, within this context, “experimental institutionalism” has aimed to reconfigure art institutions into sites for sociality, dialogue, care, and collaboration. Experimental institutionalism is a field of institutional reform, curatorial practice, and debate concerned with the art institution’s transformation into a socially responsible agent. In this paper, I summarize experimental institutionalism’s main dimensions, drawing on key examples from the field to explore the art museum’s capacity to repair the social bonds ruptured by capitalist urbanism.