A write up of the Dream Infrastructures workshop hosted at New Inc on 27 June 2024. See are.na for more documentation.

On June 27th, 2024, a gathering at New INC convened artists, researchers, and organizers to explore evolving architectures of support—what might be called "dream infrastructures." Hosted by Trust, Rhizome, and New INC, the event sought to map out the necessary conditions for sustaining artistic and collective practices that exist in the liminal space between formal institutions and experimental networks.

Dreaming Infrastructures into Being

The session opened with a "question burst," prompting participants to articulate their most urgent concerns around sustaining creative and research-based practices. What forms of infrastructure best facilitate artistic and collective work? How do informal or emergent networks offer support beyond traditional funding models? How can an infrastructure remain adaptive rather than ossified?

These questions framed the discussion around para-institutions—artist-run spaces, online communities, open-source platforms, and DAOs—that are actively reshaping modes of mentorship, funding, and knowledge diffusion. Such models operate as speculative yet tangible propositions for rethinking creative ecosystems.

The Practice of Worlding

Worlding, as invoked in the workshop, was understood as an active process of constructing new realities within existing structures. Inspired by thinkers such as Ian Cheng and feminist scholars Cecilia Åsberg, Kathrin Thiele, and Iris van der Tuin, participants considered world-making as a practice that situates speculative futures within material conditions. Rather than being solely aspirational, worlding in this context functions as an infrastructural act—building platforms, collectives, and alternative economies that enable artistic and political agency.

Mapping the Needs of Dream Projects

Through an exercise in collective speculation, participants submitted single-sentence "dream projects"—ideas that ranged from practical to poetic, from institutional interventions to deeply personal experiments. These projects were anonymously drawn and workshopped in small groups, identifying patterns and shared infrastructures required to bring them to life. Some recurring themes included:

• Shared Spaces: Many dreams revolved around space-sharing models—rethinking how venues, studios, and even nightclubs could function outside of traditional hours or economic models.
• Digital and Physical Hybridity: From open-source dream archives to collectively maintained reliquaries, the tension between embodied and virtual infrastructures was a key theme.
• Decentralized Governance: Several groups explored alternative models of governance and economic structures, from blockchain-native DAOs to micro-granting cooperatives.
• Temporalities of Support: The discussion surfaced differing temporal rhythms of support—from singular events to sustained, open-ended platforms that allow for long-term engagement.

Beyond Critique: Prototyping the Future

A central provocation that emerged from the discussion was: How do we evaluate dream infrastructures? Moving beyond critique, the workshop encouraged a practice of prototyping—treating speculative ideas as blueprints for action. Rather than simply assessing feasibility, participants considered the poetic and political dimensions of a dream’s vitality: its ability to invite participation, sustain itself through interdependent networks, and maintain adaptability over time.

Infrastructures, whether built or imagined, function not only as material supports but as dynamic, relational ecologies. The Dream Infrastructures workshop at New INC was less about finding definitive answers and more about collectively articulating what is possible when we treat dreams as tangible sites of intervention.

As the session closed, one question lingered in the air: What does it mean to ask about dreams instead of needs? Perhaps infrastructures emerge most powerfully not from pre-existing demands, but from the ability to imagine futures that institutions have yet to conceive.