Biennales and other recurring global cultural events often promise to reflect a world in flux. Yet many remain bound to rigid structures—national pavilions, territorial representation, and cyclical rhythms—rooted in 19th century geopolitical models. These frameworks persist for their predictability, recognisability, and economic stability. But are they equipped to address today’s fractured realities?

As global crises intensify, the urgency for collaboration and actionable solidarity grows. At the 2023 London Design Biennale, Nieuwe Instituut— under the artistic direction of Aric Chen—introduced ‘The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations’, seeking alternative constellations of partnership. Yet, as the ‘Remapping Collaborations Working Group’ cautions, “collaboration” risks becoming a buzzword—platformed, sanitised and instrumentalised.

 Initiated by researchers Delany Boutkan and Setareh Noorani of Nieuwe Instituut, with programme manager Joyce Hanssen and support from the Creative Industries Fund NL, the Working Group engaged in public sessions and intimate dialogues in London and Rotterdam. These gatherings explored the interpersonal, institutional, and bureaucratic dynamics that shape collaboration—its potential, tensions and fragilities.

 The resulting publication brings together layered and personal reflections, essays and collaged transcripts from Working Group members: Yin Aiwen, Ali T. As’ad, Nishat Awan, Anja Groten, Colin Keays, and RESOLVE

Collective (Melissa Haniff, Akil Scafe-Smith, Seth Scafe-Smith). Their contributions push against the established frameworks of international cultural events, such as biennales, as well as the cultural industries’ prevailing approaches to collaboration—exploring how to circumvent these systems or, in some cases, reject them entirely.

Across the contributions and discussions, common questions arise: How do we create conditions for genuine, equitable, messy and generative collaborations—both nationally and internationally? Can international cultural events, as scholar Sara Ahmed suggests, embrace disorientation to forge “new directions”? The working group calls for international events that value the unpredictability of relationality, opacity over spectacle and discomfort over polished narratives.