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We produce and curate great art and ambitious projects
Looking Forward develops interdisciplinary projects that move across exhibitions, research, publishing, residencies, digital platforms, and public programmes. We work with institutions, artists, and communities to explore how curating can respond to contemporary cultural, ecological, and social urgencies.
Our work is structured around long-term collaborations, flexible formats, and shared authorship, adapting to different scales, contexts, and challenges. From field-based projects and experimental pedagogies to strategic consultancy and critical publishing, each strand contributes to a wider commitment to rethinking how culture is created, organised, and shared.
New publication: Artistic Practices as Environmental Research
Publication of a new chapter by Looking Forward’s founding director, Carolina Lio-Rodrigues, in Sustainable Design, Art, and Innovation: A New Paradigm on Creative Practice, published by Springer and edited by Muhammad Nawaz Tunio, Hasim Altan, Shlagha Agarwal and Marina Checa Olivas. “Artistic Practices as Environmental Research: Designing and Implementing Public Engagement for Sustainability” explores how socially engaged art can operate not simply as commentary on the clim
ECAH2026 - Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts
The 14th European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH2026) is taking place at SOAS and UCL, in London. We are pleased to share that our founding director, Carolina Lio Rodrigues, will be presenting and chairing the session “Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts”. ECAH2026 is an international interdisciplinary conference organised by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR). The conference brings together scholars, researchers and practitioners working across t
SHCG Journal: Engagement, Outreach or Participation?
We are pleased to share that a new journal article by our Community Engagement Curator, Sylvia Keck-Soler, has been published in the Social History in Museums Journal. Titled "Engagement, Outreach or Participation? Reflections on Community Work and Creative Health in London Art Institutions", the article builds on the insights gathered during last year's Feedforward Series on Creative Wellbeing. Sylvia's investigation offers a timely insight into how major London arts organis
Feedforward: Curating in a Climate Crisis 2
On the 19th of March 2026, Looking Forward convened the second iteration of its Feedforward series Curating in a Climate Crisis, bringing together curators and researchers to address the role of curatorial work within the climate and ecological emergency. This Feedforward session, hosted at Gasworks in London, and convened by Carolina Lio, Director, and Francesca Fantoni, Assistant Curator at Looking Forward, brought together curators from major UK institutions. Participants
Feedforward: Curating in a Climate Crisis
On the 29th of January 2026, Looking Forward convened curators and cultural producers working at the intersection of art and ecology for a Feedforward session titled Curating in a Climate Crisis. Bringing together practitioners working across institutional, independent and interdisciplinary contexts, the session created space to reflect collectively on what it means to curate amidst ecological collapse and how curators and cultural institutions might respond with care and ima
Report of Food for Landscapes: Recipes for Slow Disasters
During Design Week South Africa (23–26 October), Food for Landscapes: Recipes for Slow Disasters unfolded in Cape Town as an exhibition and meeting point for thinking, tasting, and talking about how landscapes and people might heal. The project marks the first South African activation of a long-term, multi-continental project and methodology by British artist Andrew Merritt, which uses art, food, and ecological research to address “slow disasters”, a term coined by Merritt to
Looking Forward at DCDC25: Reimagining Accessibility Through AI
We’re excited to announce that our director, Carolina Lio, will be speaking at this year’s Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities (DCDC25) conference at Durham University, one of the UK’s most significant cross-sectoral events uniting the gallery, library, archive, museum, and academic (GLAMA) communities. Hosted by the British Library, Jisc, and The National Archives, and held at Durham University, DCDC25 brings together over 500 delegates from around the world to
SHCG Conference 2025: Curating Communities
We’re pleased to announce that Looking Forward’s curator, Sylvia Keck will be speaking at the Social History Curators Group (SHCG) Conference 2025, taking place on 25–26 June. This year’s theme, Curating Communities, brings together practitioners exploring how museums and cultural organisations engage with the publics they serve. Sylvia’s talk, titled "Programming Community: Creative Health Practices in London’s Art Sector," offers a critical reflection on the rise of creativ
Study Group at Delfina Foundation: Narrative Report
The first Slow Disasters Study Group took place at the Delfina Foundation in London on 29 May 2025. Hosted by artist and designer Andrew Merritt, curator Carolina Lio, and artist Emilio Hernández Martínez, with recorded contributions from Dr Nik Petek-Sargeant (University of Cambridge) and Maya Marshak (Sustainability Institute, South Africa), the session marked the launch of a transnational conversation on the ethics and practice of repair. Participants explored how Field Ho
Field Hospital: Unearthing Study Group at Delfina Foundation
On Thursday, 29 May 2025, from 18:30 to 20:30, the Delfina Foundation in London will host the inaugural gathering of the Field Hospital project. This event invites participants to explore how we can collectively unearth the ghosts of degraded landscapes and consider what it means to feed a place back to life. Join us for the first public event of Field Hospital, a long-term transdisciplinary project that acts as a nursery for land restoration in zones of slow disaster — a ter
SCIN Conference 2025, Museum of the Future, Dubai: Artistic Practices as Environmental Research
At the SCIN Conference 2025, hosted at the Museum of the Future, Abu Dhabi University, and Istituto Marangoni Dubai, Carolina Lio, Director of Looking Forward, presented her paper, "Artistic Practices as Environmental Research." Cooking Sections, CLIMAVORE: On Tidal Zones, Isle of Skye, Scotland (2017). Courtesy of the artists and Visible. In her presentation, she explored how creative practices can serve as catalysts for ecological restoration and social change, drawing on c
AR@K25 symposium in Oslo: "Truth, reality and artistic invention"
On March 18, Carolina Lio presents the paper The Politics of Truth in Socially Engaged Art: Agenda or Authenticity? at AR@K, the annual, cross-disciplinary, international symposium for artistic research hosted by Kristiania University in Oslo. Socially engaged art is often framed as an authentic platform for representing marginalised voices and creating ethical, care-based practices. However, such works inherently rely on selective truths shaped by the artist’s creative inte
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