Collecting material and immaterial cultural assets is both the basis and backbone of social identity. However, this is also where many collections fall short. There is a growing list of suggestions as to how collection practice might be changed. At the same time, new parameters of collecting are being considered within academia. Moving their focus from ownership to custodianship, museums are developing a new understanding of what it means to collect, while artists and non-artists alike transcend entrenched narratives around museums by acting as curators and more and more works are collected for their immateriality. Pursuing the topic of “Future Collections”, we discuss ideas, projects and practices of “pre-enactment”, where the present is used as a basis to imagine a potential future, where the now helps us to develop a future-proof form of collecting.
