Collective curatorial experiment by Bianca Schick, Cecilia Casabona, Maren Bang, Noam Y. Son, and Pete Fung.
Graphic identity by Alex Foradori and Bianca Schick
Exhibition design by Paskamer
Cultural institutions today find themselves at a crossroads. The shifting political, economic, and social terrain across Europe and Western countries demands that we critically reassess what these spaces are doing—and for whom. Rather than accepting institutions as they are, we must turn the lens inward: What kind of work are these institutions performing? Whose needs are they serving? What should an art institution offer in 2025, and how might it go about doing so?
This project explores how collaboration and institutional practice might evolve. At its heart lies a fundamental question: How can we harness the power of the commons as a cultural organisation?
How to enter from the exit is a research-driven project and collective curatorial experiment that reimagines cultural institutions as dynamic systems shaped by collaboration, experimentation, and shared knowledge. The exhibition unfolds through three installations and a shared living platform where we invite people and fellow cultural workers to work with us, creating space—both literal and temporal—for practicing "work in common."
We approach this as fundamentally relational rather than transactional work. Instead of simply producing content for consumption or market exchange, we sustain shared cultures of work—building something together that outlasts any single project or output.
This becomes an active method of institution-building through everyday acts of designing, maintaining, caring for spaces, hosting conversations, and negotiating differences. These operational practices form the very foundation of institutional life.
Most importantly, this approach views institutions not as fixed structures but as ongoing processes—dynamic, co-created spaces of labor and care that emerge through the act of commoning itself. By occupying Onomatopee's spaces, we aim to reveal the behind-the-scenes processes of institutional thinking while encouraging alternative formats for imagining how institutions can reproduce and evolve.
General Opening Hours
October 11–December 21, 2025
Open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 12-5 PM
At Onomatopee
DDW Opening Hours
October 18-26, 2025
Open daily between 11AM-6PM
Exhibition Opening
Friday, October 10, 2025
7:30–10 PM (doors open 7 PM)
Free entrance + free drink
At Onomatopee
Program Line
How to enter from the exit is the second exhibition in the five-year program The Future Commons and focusses on articulating processes and activities that foster co-creation and coexistence among artists, institutions, and locality where they operate. These activities, marked as -ing, are always ongoing and in the making as they express acts of living: dreaming, working, loving, learning, and healing. Retracing these activities underscores their role in shaping common goods and values and guiding how we care for them and for one another.
Publication
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication, published by Onomatopee. More info will follow later.