Key Concepts For A New Cultural Institution

The focus of this paper is on a cultural institution that emerged in 2012 out of a mobilisation of workers in the arts and cultural industries.1 MACAO is an independent centre for art, culture and research in Milan that considers artistic production a vital process for rethinking social change and for elaborating independent political critique. It is also a place for experimenting with the kind of innovative models of cooperative governance and production that are of interest to the Radical Open Access Collective, as the introduction to this pamphlet makes clear. MACAO promotes research in different fields, including those concerned with labour conditions in the creative industries and cultural sectors; the right to the city; the fight against sexist and racist violence; and new organisational and technological solutions for cultural production. Moreover, MACAO has fostered a transversal public programme that hosts artist residencies, installations, public readings, seminars, workshops and hacklabs, as well as performances of music, film and design.