About us
Kin Structures builds and sustains infrastructure for cultural and community expression.
Working with culture and relationships as materials, we create spaces where art, learning and play are tools for people to express themselves fully and realise their collective agency. Countering the disconnection produced by contemporary structures of power, our work centres connection and exchange as dynamics that can reshape our relationships with our bodies, each-other and more-than-human kin.
Kin Structures began as a response to the declining numbers of cultural and community spaces in London, particularly community centres. So far, most of our work has been rooted in community centres that are under-used and at-risk of closing down. This has meant our work is also focussed on revealing and transforming the bureaucratic systems that govern these spaces so that they can best serve the communities around them.
Kwame Lowe Kwame Lowe is an artist and curator. His practice involves creating spaces around art, outside of institutions, and making these spaces works of art in themselves.
Kwame is a co-founder of Kin Structures, along with Arman Nouri, where they are exploring new approaches to building and sustaining community and cultural infrastructure. Their first project (2022) was a nine-month residency at Orchard Gardens Community Centre on Orchard Gardens Estate in Lewisham, where they worked with local residents to imagine new futures for the space and wider neighbourhood.
Kin Structures were the Curating and Producing Partner for Rehearsing Freedoms, leading on the curation of a month-long festival of art, community-based healing and movement building in Autumn 2023. Working alongside Healing Justice London and other key partners, Kin Structures held the vision for the festival, developing an innovative cultural and infrastructural strategy, pulling together the steering group and collaborators.
Kin Structures are now focussing on developing and delivering a 10-year vision for the Soanes Centre in Tower Hamlets Cemetry Park, in partnership with Setpoint London East, as co-stewards of the space.
Kwame is a member of Design Council’s network of experts through which he contributes more broadly to research, policy and thought leadership on community and cultural infrastructure.
Instagram: @kwame_lo
Arman NouriArman Nouri is an artist and educator working in and between the spaces of cultural and spatial practice.
Arman is co-founder of Kin Structures, a collaborative arts practice shared with Kwame Lowe, building and sustaining cultural and community infrastructure. Their first project Orchard Gardens (2022) saw them take up residency at the Orchard Gardens Community Centre in Lewisham, south London, where they worked with local residents to imagine new futures for the space and wider neighbourhood.
Arman also co-hosts Sound & Solidarity with Sound Advice. Solidarity provides space for collective listening and discussion about music and beyond. Held since 2021, previous gatherings have taken place at The Mosaic Rooms, SOAS and the Roundhouse.
Arman is also a DJ and a founding member of music crew Houseplants.
Previously, he led the Mayor of London’s Culture & Community Spaces at Risk programme.
Instagram: arman___nouri
Twitter: arman_nouri