About us
Kin Structures is the collaborative practice of Arman Nouri and Kwame Lowe. Together, they are exploring new approaches to building and sustaining community and cultural infrastructure. Their work brings people together through art and culture, recognising their ability to encourage imagination and cultivate exchange of the ideas, knowledges and practices necessary to create just futures.
Just futures can be realised when communities have the physical space and resources to proactively create their futures for themselves. Recognising the fact that some groups have been and continue to be under-served by enduring structures of power, their work centres these communities in the knowledge that their empowerment is crucial for the creation of a just world.
Kwame Lowe Kwame Lowe is a curator and artist. His practice incorporates elements of community organising and views the city as a site for collaborative creation.
Kwame is one half 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.
He is an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins where he is the unit lead for the Infrastructures and Transactions unit on the MA Cities course. This course explores alternative, creative approaches to city-making and the unit goes beyond traditional urban design and planning methods to engage with the realities of fluctuating and emerging forms of economic flows and social transactions.
He is also part of a research project to develop principles for large-scale community ownership with Daniel Fitzpatrick, Pablo Sendra and Jonathan Rosenberg. This research is intended to influence national policy and produce a publication as a resource for wider dissemination.
He 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
Twitter: @kwame_lo
Arman NouriArman Nouri is an artist, organiser 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, that explores new approaches to 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.
Alongside Sound Advice, Arman co-hosts Sound & Solidarity, an event series and radio show that creates space for collective listening and discussion of music. The gatherings use music and sound to help articulate approaches to challenging colonialism and offering solidarity. The radio show is broadcast on Radio Al-Hara.
He teaches at Central Saint Martins where he co-leads the Critical Creative Practices unit (with Lagos arts collective HFactor) as part of MA Cities. MA Cities explores alternative, creative approaches to city-making, and Arman’s unit opens students up to live projects and collaborations with external agencies, for example local government, arts groups and third-sector organisations.
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