You produce theater. You curate exhibitions. You program concerts and perform on the world’s leading stages. And meanwhile, you state in your policy plan that you want to contribute to a more inclusive model of society, to democratic imagination, and to bridging the gap between those who belong and those who are left out. That’s no modest ambition. That’s an ambition for society as a whole.
The question you’d be better off asking honestly rather than avoiding is this: how does that ambition relate to what you do on a daily basis? A theater isn’t a policy tool. An exhibition doesn’t solve segregation. A dance company doesn’t rectify structural inequality. And yet, one by one, arts organizations have chosen precisely this kind of ambition. Art is the means; the world is the arena.
That deserves respect. And it calls for a strategy that matches the scale of that ambition.
“Only variety beats variety. If you want to tackle something multifaceted, you have to approach it from multiple angles. ”
Problems that belong to everyone and to no one
If you compare the missions of arts organizations, you’ll find that, across disciplines and cities, they’re responding to the same social diagnosis. Society is becoming increasingly fragmented. Inequality is on the rise. Cultural polarization is eroding our ability to live and think together. Those who lack access to spaces for imagination and debate are missing out on something essential.
These are not minor problems. They are what are known in organizational theory as complex issues or “wicked problems”: problems that seem to belong to everyone and no one at the same time. There is no clear owner. There is no single cause. There is no point at which you can say, “It’s solved.”
These issues are difficult because they relate to at least four ways that are complex at the same time are.
- Content-wise : No single discipline has the answer all to itself.
- Social : Dozens of actors with conflicting interests and views are involved at every level.
- Contextual: even those with keen moral and analytical insight are taken by surprise by shifting power dynamics, cultural diversity, and constantly shifting systemic boundaries.
- And psychological because anyone who works with such issues is inevitably confronted with a fundamental lack of controllability and knowability. You cannot fully understand it. You cannot fully control it. That is uncomfortable, and you cannot organize your way out of that discomfort.
Temptations That Don't Go Far Enough
When organizations tackle such issues, they almost automatically fall back on familiar patterns. Each of these patterns contains an element of truth, and that is precisely why each one is a trap.
The first temptation is to take on the issue as if it were your own problem. You roll up your sleeves, take concrete steps, and do what you can. That’s sincere and valuable. Soon after, however, the feeling of fighting a losing battle sets in: you do something, but it’s still not enough—and you know it yourself. The reflex to make complexity manageable—to translate it into actions within your own scope—actually makes tough issues even tougher. Managing complexity away is just procrastination.
The second temptation is to shift the responsibility elsewhere—to the government, to the sector. On a coalition, a platform, or an initiative that has yet to be established. You need others—that’s true. But this line of reasoning breaks down as soon as it becomes clear that there’s a lack of oversight everywhere: on your part, on the part of the government, and on the part of the parties to whom you delegate. Centralization merely shifts the illusion of control.
The third temptation is broad consultation. Leaving your island, bringing all perspectives together, getting everyone to the table. That sounds good. The pitfall is that consultation becomes an end in itself. Platforms multiply, tables fill up, working groups report to steering committees, and meanwhile, the problem remains unresolved. Comprehensive coordination works well for straightforward issues. In cases of multiple complexities, however, it seeks a single shared answer to a problem that is, in fact, defined by its very multiplicity.
The principle at play here is that of the British cyberneticist Ross Ashby: “Only variety beats variety.” If you want to tackle something complex, you have to approach it from multiple angles. That’s not a quick process. It’s a steady, disciplined, and sometimes uncomfortable process.
“A rhizome has no beginning and no end; it is always moving in between things, connecting, splitting, and branching out. Everything is interconnected, but not through a center.”
The Rhizome as a Counter-Model
At S&L, we sometimes use metaphors. The dot on the horizon. The compass. The tree: roots as the foundation, a trunk as the core, fruits as the result. These are useful images for issues that are clear enough to be approached in this way.
They fall short when it comes to complex, multifaceted problems. And the reason runs deeper than mere methodology. The tree is not just a handy metaphor; it is a way of thinking. A way that is deeply embedded in how Western organizations, institutions, and intellectual traditions structure reality. Philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari analyzed this as early as the 1970s: tree-like thinking forces reality into vertical structures. There is a core, a hierarchy, a center from which everything is made understandable. Rationalizing, centralizing, standardizing—these are all expressions of that same tendency to tame complexity by organizing it. And that tendency, they argued, is not neutral. It excludes what does not fit. It makes the world more understandable by impoverishing it.
Their alternative was the rhizome: the underground network of a fungus. Connections that proliferate, grow where opportunities arise, and find new paths when old ones become blocked.
A rhizome moves between things, connecting, splitting, and branching out. There is no beginning and no end. Everything is interconnected along a thousand threads at once, and rarely in a linear fashion: an intervention in one place has repercussions in places that are difficult to pinpoint in advance. There is no center, no essence, and no standard. Its manifestations are heterogeneous, unexpected, and always different. Leadership circulates; each voice speaks from its own position. Under pressure, the rhizome bends, seeks new paths, and grows around obstacles. There is something inevitably opportunistic about it. The map it creates of reality is always temporary: meaning emerges along the way, rewritten time and again.
That’s a fundamentally different logic than that of the tree. And for organizations working on tough social issues, it’s a fairer logic.
“It’s hard to overestimate the value of local practice—what actually happens in the theater, at the exhibition, in community outreach, or at the concert hall.”
Contamination as a Strategy
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing puts it this way in her wonderful book The Mushroom at the End of the World in a way that sticks with you. How does a society become an event, more than the sum of its parts? Her answer: through contamination. We become “contaminated” by the encounters we have. We change who we are the moment we make room for others. Purity does not exist. The key to survival is change.
“Contamination” sounds unsettling. But that’s exactly the point. Tsing uses the term to describe a reality that cannot be engineered, cannot be fully known, and cannot be controlled—yet is richer and more robust than any centralized strategy could ever produce. An organization whose members are shaped by the people they meet—one that does not cling to its identity but allows it to flow and evolve through interaction—is resilient in the best sense of the word.
For Dutch arts organizations seeking to make a social impact, this has concrete implications. The value of local practice—what actually happens in the theater, at the exhibition, in community outreach, or in the concert hall—can hardly be overestimated. It is the only place where you can truly take action, slow down, learn, and create depth. That is your core, and you must take it seriously.
But the strategy that goes along with it doesn’t begin or end within those walls. It requires connections: diverse, targeted connections with people who are far enough removed from you to offer you something new. Not your usual circle, not your trusted partners from the same sector. Research consistently shows that meaningful shifts often occur through weak ties—through people with whom you have no close bond. The healthcare facility you’ve never called. The community worker who doesn’t know your programming but does know your audience. The urban planner who thinks about the same streets as you do, but from a completely different perspective.
Connecting doesn't become a side activity. It becomes work. It becomes the very fabric of your organization.
How do you develop a strategy tailored to your ambitious challenges?
The question then is: How do you organize yourself so that connection-building is not an exception, but a structural practice? How do you view your territory—the city, the neighborhood, the field—as a living network rather than a defined area of operation? How do you strategically select whom you seek to connect with, and why? And how do you keep those connections productive—heterogeneous, multifaceted, and not fixated on a single shared answer?
These are questions we at S&L would like to explore, together with organizations that share exactly that ambition: to think big about social change, while at the same time being honest about the limits of what can be achieved alone.
There are approaches for this. A way to build your strategy like a rhizome rather than a tree. A way to avoid having to choose between the local depth of your own practice and the breadth of the connections you need. A way to not fear contamination, but to organize it. Hans Vermaak wrote a clear book on this subject titled “The Logic of the Patchwork Quilt” (Boom, 2025).
We’re happy to share that approach. But it starts with the question every organization must first ask itself honestly: Who has truly changed you over the past few years? And who have you changed through who you are? The answer to that question reveals more about your strategic health than any policy plan ever could.
