It Doesn't Have to Be This Way: Cultivating change praxis in the art institutional ecosystem

Cultural institutions are increasingly called to become more democratic, diverse, accessible, and critically engaged. Yet these aspirations sit in tension with their colonial, imperial, and capitalist foundations, creating dissonance between public commitments and everyday institutional realities. Arts workers often experience this as burnout, disillusionment, and stuckedness. This practice-based PhD explores how meaningful change can emerge through small, relational shifts in perspective, practice, and connection. Conceptualising institutions as living ecologies, the research develops participatory curatorial and design approaches grounded in Indigenous relationality, systems change, and queer-feminist theory. Through workshops, exhibitions, mapping, and community gatherings in Naarm, it offers practical frameworks for everyday institutional change. It doesn’t have to be this way. It could be so good.