For many countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, cultural production was historically co-opted by the state in anti-colonial struggles and post-colonial nation building, paving the way for decades of tension between private initiatives and government mechanisms. The situation has changed but hardly for the better, with many states neglecting the financial and infrastructural needs of their country’s cultural landscapes. Yet within this void, the last twenty years have born witness to the flourishing of independent, non-commercial art centers across these zones. In developing an expanded curatorial practice that embraces the institution as form, in contexts where aesthetics and knowledge production often escape Western paradigms, such spaces allow for new understandings of the potential of arts organizations as well as the relationship between art and life.