The Activating Artistic Intelligence team, CLCF members ME Luka and Mark Campbell, and Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence founder and creative lead, Helen Yung, have spent much of 2025 working on building a global consortium to develop research and share findings from and information about artistic intelligence. In January 2025, they received one of the first SSHRC Destination Horizon grants at U of T, for $14,996, matched by $10,000 each from the U of T Office of the Vice-President, International and CLCF (total $34,996). The first half of this funding has gone towards a series of activities over the last several months, including the support of Research Assistant, Upasana Bhattacharjee. Building on decades of research and engagement in Canada and Europe, AAI is inquiring into the ways that artistic intelligence can play a key role in responding to the seemingly permanent state of polycrisis.

Between June 22-28, 2025, we three visited Amsterdam and Brussels to work with university faculty and culture sector leaders to develop what AAI could become, and to explore potential interest in a global consortium. While our project page describes this visit in some detail, suffice it to say that the burgeoning consortium now numbers some 45+ individuals and organizations, including HUPR, a research centre in Montreal, faculty from Utrecht University in Amsterdam, KU Leuven and KU Brussels in Belgium, as well as Goldsmiths in London. Culture Action Europe and ELIA Association of Arts Schools have been founding members of the consortium, and several of our existing partners in Canada have begun to join us in this work.

One of the outcomes of these early discussions was the creation of the Art/In Forum, a hub headquartered at the LAI. The forum is composed of researchers, artists, thinkers, culture sector leaders and funders, and others, both individual and organizational. With each participating individual and organization contributing in-kind or cash resources that make sense for them and their levels of interest in the AAI and related initiatives, it is a collaboration based on trust and creativity. It also provides some structure for a loose network of collaborators to be convened on a periodic basis.

One of the first times this was in evidence was during the international UNESCO Mondiacult session that Yung, Luka, Campbell and Bhattacharjee organized on Activating Artistic Intelligence this year on September 24, 2025. It was so well-subscribed that many of our newer partners have emerged from that process.

Our first official consortium meeting was held on December 2, 2025, incorporating a wide-ranging discussion of the meaning of artistic intelligence, what people would like to work towards as research or applied projects, and interest in developing next-level grants. In 2026, AAI will convene a series of working meetings to prepare a Horizon Europe Cluster 2 application for “HORIZON-CL2-2026-01-HERITAGE-01: ‘Artistic intelligence’: harnessing the power of the arts to address complex challenges, enhance soft skills and boost innovation and competitiveness” as well as to explore a SSHRC PDG or Partnership Grant. If you’re interested in joining, reach out to Mark, ME, or Helen.