Tools for Conviviality

Tools for Conviviality is a three-year program initiative of Kunstinstituut Melly, which runs from 2023 to 2025. Its aim is to create vibrant and qualitative public engagements year-round. The first iteration of Tools for Conviviality, from June 2023 to June 2024, involved the engagement of numerous artists, makers, and partners in Rotterdam and beyond, who worked in their realization and collaborated in their presentation.

Tools for Conviviality further develops and deepens the thinking across much of our programs at Kunstinstituut Melly. Specifically, it marks the third in a series of program initiatives meant to meaningfully transform our institution through expert training combined with experimental forms of public engagement and social participation. Begun in 2023, Tools for Conviviality follows Tools for Collective Learning begun in 2018, and Tools for Demodernizing, which was initiated in 2022. While each of these initiatives are unique in their focus, what they share is an emphasis placed on practice. Key to this thinking is what’s referred to as the “lean approach”. Namely, a means through which to apply theory in practice.