Labor strikes disrupting travel to NFC Lisbon this week made us wonder: can communities endure remotely? The instinctive answer is no: gatherings matter. This year’s proliferation of new institutions has reminded us of the importance of artists, collectors, and curators sharing physical space.

But perhaps the more nuanced answer is: it depends on how we collaborate. Edouard’s conversation with 100 Collectors’ Eleonora Brizi about digital asset preservation highlights the vital but unglamorous labor of stewardship, and the power of collectors thinking like custodians of culture rather than traders. This is certainly core to the vision of NODE, whose founders stressed this week to Right Click Save that “The institution can no longer behave like a passive container. It has to become an active collaborator.”

If NODE is currently perfecting the physical display of digital art, Connie Bakshi’s web-based interactive film Between These Black Waters demonstrates that meaningful artistic experiences can still happen entirely online. The work exists nowhere but on a screen, yet it is intimate and deeply physical in the way it demands your presence.

Following a week in which Pace Gallery’s CEO, Marc Glimcher, declared in a press statement that “the current gallery model isn’t only broken, it’s unfixable,” the need to meet people where they are has never been greater. With wall texts becoming increasingly user-friendly, the art world appears to be falling out of love with artspeak. Community, as it turns out, depends on inclusive language.

— Danielle King, Head of Community at Right Click Save