About (new): AKKA Project - Connected Through Art

AKKA Project is entering a new chapter.

After many years working as a contemporary art gallery, we are reshaping AKKA Project into a more flexible, human, and artist-centered cultural platform—one that reflects how we want to work today, and what we believe artists truly need.

This shift is not about stepping away from commitment or ambition. It is about choosing depth over speed, relationships over transactions, and long-term presence over constant visibility.

 

Why This Change

Running a commercial gallery has allowed us to support important artists and bring their work into public and institutional view. At the same time, it has demanded a level of constant production, sales pressure, and operational intensity that increasingly left less room for what matters most to us: time, research, listening, and sustained engagement with artists.

We have come to realize that our greatest contribution lies beyond a sales-driven model.

By moving away from a traditional gallery structure, we are able to:

  • Spend more time on the ground, discovering practices through direct encounters and research
  • Support artists throughout their journeys, focus on storytelling, process, and context
  • Build an audience that connects with art through meaning, curiosity, and shared values

This transition allows AKKA Project to stay true to its original mission, while giving it a more personal and attentive form.

 

AKKA Project & AKKA Collection

AKKA Collection is a living collection built through long-term relationships with artists. Acquisitions are conceived as a form of support and continuity, not speculation. The collection serves as a space of care, preservation, and future visibility for the practices we believe in.

AKKA Project operates as the active platform around the collection. It develops programs, residencies, research, publications, and encounters that allow artists’ work and ideas to circulate beyond the studio and the market.

Together, they form an ecosystem centered on artistic practice rather than market cycles.

 

How We Work

Artist Support & Production

We support artists in practical and flexible ways—through acquisitions, production assistance, material support, and tailored forms of help that respond to each artist’s context and needs.

Residencies & Mobility

Residencies are central to our vision. We believe time and movement are essential to artistic growth. AKKA Project supports research-based and production-oriented residencies in Africa and internationally, as well as mobility for travel, visas, and exploration.

Research, Storytelling & Publishing

We place strong emphasis on storytelling as a way of honoring artistic practice. Through journals, interviews, visual essays, and publications, we document processes, ideas, and lived experiences—creating space for reflection rather than promotion.

Curated Encounters & Cultural Journeys

We organize small, intimate encounters that bring artists into conversation with collectors, curators, writers, and institutions. These include studio visits and curated cultural trips rooted in exchange, learning, and presence.

Selective Exhibitions & Collaborations

Exhibitions, art fairs, and collaborations remain part of our work, but they are approached selectively and thoughtfully. Visibility is pursued when it aligns with the artist’s trajectory and the project’s values—not as an end in itself.

 

Our Values

  • Long-term commitment
  • Care, trust, and continuity in relationships
  • Research-led and context-aware engagement
  • Ethical collecting and responsible stewardship
  • Slowness, attention, and depth as meaningful forms of support

 

Looking Forward

This evolution marks a recalibration rather than a break.

AKKA Project continues to grow alongside the artists it supports—through listening, learning, and shared experience. By working beyond a sales-driven structure, we hope to create a space where artistic practices can unfold with honesty, time, and dignity, and where meaningful connections between artists, collections, and institutions can take root and last.

 

Thank You ❤️

Thank you sincerely for your support and collaboration throughout AKKA Project’s journey so far. I look forward to continuing our relationship in this new, more personal, exploratory, and impact-driven format.

Warm regards,

Lidija Kostic Khachatourian