Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons

About Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons is an experimental platform where art invites a social vision, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Art and the commons are two key practices, serving as tools and models for non-capitalist ways of living together. Casco Art Institute advances this vision by creating a space or “Casco”, meaning in Dutch “a basic structure” for change, co-exploration, and study through collective art projects and organizational experiments.

Collective art projects are co-developed from critical questions and radical imagination. These initiatives are process-based and place-specific, forming communities and generating art and knowledge as common resources. Organizational experiments are embedded in all these projects, including within the structure of Casco Art Institute itself. The aim is to offer an example of a commonly desirable institution of art and the commons—one that embodies diversity, equity, pluralism, and sustainability.

Casco was founded in 1990 as an experimental art space on the Oudegracht in Utrecht. In 1995, it was renamed Casco Projects, initiating a program focused on autonomy and intervention. In 2003, it adopted the name Office for Art, Design and Theory to expand its framework to include artistic research and interdisciplinary practices. In 2007, Casco moved to a new location on the Nieuwekade, designed by ifau (Institute for Applied Urbanism) and Jesko Fezer. In 2014, it relocated to its current space on Lange Nieuwstraat. The year 2018 marked another significant transition with the renaming to Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons. This shift signaled a commitment to actualizing artistic practices through non-capitalist, feminist values grounded in reproduction, care, and sustainability.

Keywords

• Art
• Design
• Theory

Address

• Headquarters

  Nieuwekade 213-2153511RW UtrechtUtrecht, Netherlands

Team by function

Based on 9 public job profiles as of 4 September 2026.

• Design / UX2
• Executive / C-Suite2
• Marketing2
• Creative / Media1
• Finance / Accounting1
• IT / Infrastructure / Security1