The Project
Plausible Artworlds is a multi-phase project initiated by the Philadelphia-based group BASEKAMP, in collaboration with a self-organized network of international groups and individuals (and organized with InLiquid.com).  This network will reach out to involve many others, through a 2-year-long collaborative process, in actively re-imagining the complex cultural systems – the 'artworlds' – that define both the limits and potentials of contemporary art practice. Artists ideas about, and experiments with, alternate artworlds will be made accessible through a website, publication, and events leading up to a large-scale Convention & Exhibition in 2008.

The Concept
”Art worlds, what are they? Let’s, for now, think of them as the meta networks within which art practice takes place. By the way these networks are conceived, perceived and run - artistic practices are being defined and produced.
For example, the network between social, political, cultural and economic organizations can dictate what certain arts funding bodies will, or will not, fund.  Or the social and cultural reference points in which an artist lives, may dictate what is perceived as "art".
In other words, that which is an art world, can and does make certain artistic practices possible - and others, figments of imagined plausibilities. It can be argued if the field of a given art world is narrow, the range of art that it will allow for will be narrow as well.
With the aim of expanding, maybe even evolving, the art worlds' fields - we want to explore possibilities, plausible and implausible as they might be.”

Strategic Planning Weekend – September, 2006
BASEKAMP, 723 Chestnut Street, 2nd floor, Philadelphia, USA

On-site participants:

A Constructed World (Torino, Italy / Melbourne, Australia)  
Basekamp (Philadelphia, USA)
Center for getting Ugly (Tampa, USA)
C.cred (London, UK / Malmö, Sweden)
Democratic Innovation (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Institute for Advanced Architecture (NYC/Chicago/LA, USA)
Orgacom (Amsterdam, Netherlands / Istanbul, Turkey)
Pond (San Francisco, USA)
Stephen Wright (Paris, FR)
Temporary Services (Chicago, USA)
Trinity Session (Johannesburg, South Africa)
What, How and for Whom / WHW (Zagreb, Croatia)

Description
Liaisons from 10 selected local and international collaborative art groups 'camped-out' at the BASEKAMP space in Philadelphia, during a 4-day Strategic Planning Weekend for "Plausible Artworlds", the large-scale international convention and exhibition project envisioned to be hosted in Philadelphia during 2007/08.
The Strategic Planning Weekend was constructed as an experimental conference center, with useful and disruptive interfaces developed by the artists to aid in the meeting and planning process. Intensive planning sessions detailing modes of practices and collaborative research were held at BASEKAMP and at various other outdoor and indoor public spaces.
The Planning Weekend culminated on September 18, 2007 with public presentations by the participants on conclusions arrived at about the direction of the eventual Plausible Artworlds Exhibition and Convention, with an exhibition representing the artist-generated devices used in the planning process over the weekend. 
The active participants and groups have continued to meet online after the hosted weekend in Philadelphia, using an evolving website to contribute discussion and planning. This team, in communication with other groups, will continue to further develop plans for the future of the "Plausible Artworlds Convention and Exhibition"


To read in more detail about Plausible Artworlds please visit the project's website at: http://plausibleartworlds.org

Support for development and planning of “Plausible Artworlds” has been provided by the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts.

Organized in part with InLiquid.com