A curatorial and contemporary art commissioning agency in northern Helsinki, PUBLICS holds a dedicated library, exhibition space and reading room built around close, sustained engagement with contemporary art and the ideas that shape it. It is a small institution with an ambitious charter and seriousness of purpose.

PUBLICS is the natural host for our curatorial symposium,The House She Built: Legacy, Agency and the Sustainable African Institutions Built by Women, held across two days in March 2027, with sessions at both PUBLICS and Oodi, co-curated with Nontobeko Ntombela.The symposium honours the foundational legacies of late curators Koyo Kouoh and Bisi Silva, whose work shifted the centre of gravity for African contemporary art. It gathers generations of institutional builders from across Africa — Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia — who are not merely “holding”space but creating radical blueprints for cultural sustaina-bility and economic resilience.

Here we do not just reflect on what has been made, but take a close look at what it takes to keep making. Come with questions, and expect to leave with more.