Convivial Commons

2025 - 2028

EMCCINNO is a European project supporting cultural and creative organisations on their path toward social and ecological sustainability. Through artistic approaches, collaboration, and experimentation, EMCCINNO empowers local initiatives to prototype new ways of generating impact.

At the heart of the project are five transformation sites across Europe – dynamic cultural ecosystems where community, creativity, and change converge. These sites serve as fertile grounds for rethinking, reimagining, and reconnecting. Together, they form a constellation of local action with translocal resonance.

The pilot at ZK/U aims to rethink ecological justice beyond a purely anthropocentric perspective. At its core are empathy and interaction with non-human actors such as trees and bees, which are integrated into artistic and technological experiments. Through AI-based installations like “talking trees,” interactive art performances, workshops, and citizen science formats, a new form of ecological communication emerges—one that blends emotional and scientific dimensions. This creates new participatory and democratic structures where non-human entities are symbolically given a voice and contribute to shaping urban living spaces. The goal is to creatively and accessibly connect environmental awareness, civic engagement, and data-informed decision-making.

The Five Transformation Sites:

La Friche la Belle de Mai – Marseille, France
A former tobacco factory turned cultural laboratory. La Friche pulses with artistic energy and civic engagement, exploring ecological redirection and collective transformation.

BeTime SCA – Vejer de la Frontera, Spain
Tucked away in the Andalusian countryside, BeTime is a sanctuary for slowness, reflection, and situated learning. Through residencies, land-based practices, and deep community listening, it cultivates futures that are slower, smaller, and more soulful.

Jazz ao Centro Clube (JACC) – Coimbra, Portugal
JACC rewrites the score of community arts through jazz, improvisation, and collective experimentation. Drawing from Coimbra’s cultural undercurrents, they create new connections between music, place, and democratic innovation.

KÖME – Association of Cultural Heritage Managers – Budapest, Hungary
KÖME operates at the intersection of heritage and innovation, activating cultural memory as a catalyst for sustainability. From museums to public spaces, they reimagine institutions as agents of ecological and social transition.

ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics – Berlin, Germany
A hybrid vessel between art and city-making, ZK/U cultivates urban imaginaries through residencies, research, and grassroots action. It is a place where artistic gestures become urban practices – composting bureaucracy into creative soil.