About this research project
This blog is part of my series supported by the Go See Share Fund, a Creative Scotland initiative that enables artists and collectives to travel and share knowledge across borders. Through this research, I’ve been exploring how small, artist-led and community-rooted organisations manage to stay financially sustainable while holding on to their values of inclusion, care and accessibility.
For Flos Collective, a Glasgow-based CIC supporting women and people of marginalised genders in the arts, this question feels especially pressing. We’ve grown quickly since forming in 2022 - running exhibitions, gigs and workshops that are almost entirely pay-what-you-can - but we’ve reached a point where we need to think about our long-term structure. Our goal is to evolve without losing the heart of what makes us Flos: community, creativity, and affordability.
My visit to Household in Belfast offered one of the most thoughtful models of how that balance can work in practice.
The story of Household
Household began in 2012 as a small, voluntary project that invited people to experience art in domestic spaces - literally, in people’s homes. Over one weekend, residents opened their doors to host performances, installations and discussions, transforming private living rooms and kitchens into public, shared spaces.
That first festival was a beautiful gesture of trust and curiosity. It brought art directly into people’s lives, blurring the boundaries between audience and host, artist and neighbour. The model resonated so strongly that it laid the foundation for everything that followed.
Since then, Household has evolved into a Community Interest Company with four co-directors working non-hierarchically. Their mission remains centred on connecting art, people and place - nurturing long-term relationships between artists and the communities they work within. Their ethos is grounded in care, hospitality, and mutual respect.
Household’s past projects - like Imagined City, which explored how people see and move through Belfast, or Homeward Bound, which worked with communities in Sailortown to share local histories - all share the same DNA: an emphasis on storytelling, belonging and collaboration. Their current major initiative, The Living House, aims to develop a purpose-built artist residency and research space in North Belfast, in partnership with MMA Architects. It’s an ambitious project that combines social engagement, urban regeneration and creative experimentation.
How Household sustains itself
Household’s financial landscape reflects both creativity and precarity. They don’t have multi-year core funding; instead, they rely on a mosaic of small grants, partnerships, and project-based support. Recent funders include the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Belfast City Council and various micro-grant schemes. While this approach allows flexibility and independence, it also means a constant cycle of applications, reporting, and administrative juggling.
The team spoke about the difficulty of sustaining artist wages and administrative roles under this model - something I could relate to strongly as part of Flos. One of Household’s strengths is that they treat finance as a shared creative process: spreadsheets are living documents, reviewed regularly, helping the team stay realistic about what’s possible.
Another key strategy is partnerships. Rather than competing for limited arts funding, Household collaborates with other organisations - cultural, civic, and even commercial - to share costs and responsibilities. Their partnership with MMA Architects, for example, allows them to access space, resources and expertise they couldn’t sustain alone, while the architects benefit from Household’s social and cultural knowledge.
They also embrace unrestricted income streams, like a small initiative called Uphold, where they sell artists’ work with 100% of the artist fee going to the maker, and Household taking a modest admin percentage. Every project begins with a spreadsheet, not to limit creativity but to ensure that their ambitions align with capacity.
Care as infrastructure
What struck me most about Household is how their approach to sustainability is shaped by care. For them, care isn’t just a value - it’s an operating principle. The team practices it internally through flexible working hours, shared decision-making and regular check-ins, and externally through how they engage with artists and communities.
They build long-term relationships rather than one-off engagements. Instead of open calls, they often work with artists they’ve already developed trust with, creating space for deep research and ongoing collaboration. This way, projects unfold slowly and organically, allowing ideas to mature rather than being squeezed into short funding cycles.
Their approach to community engagement is equally mindful. Household tends to work with communities through mutual exchange rather than intervention. They ask: What can we offer, and what can we learn? This sensitivity - recognising that every collaboration has to be reciprocal - is part of what makes them so respected locally.
They also understand when to walk away. In one example, after partnering with a public body whose goals shifted too far from theirs, they chose to withdraw, protecting their values rather than compromising them for funding. That clarity of purpose - knowing when something no longer aligns - is one of the most valuable forms of sustainability I’ve witnessed.
What Flos Collective can learn
There are so many lessons I’ve taken from Household, both practical and philosophical.
Diversify gently, not frantically. Rather than chasing every possible grant, Household builds a patchwork of funding that makes sense for their scale and ethics. For Flos, that means focusing on smaller, achievable funding targets while gradually adding earned income through workshops or memberships.
Partnerships are powerful. The MMA collaboration showed how combining creative and commercial worlds can work when values align. We could explore similar relationships - perhaps with social enterprises or local creative businesses - to share resources and space.
Care is a strategy. Household reminded me that care is not an add-on; it’s a financial model. Flexible working, clear communication, and emotional sustainability are what make long-term work possible.
Know when to say no. Their decision to step back from partnerships that didn’t serve their mission reinforced the importance of boundaries. As Flos grows, this will be crucial in ensuring our projects always reflect our ethos of inclusion and fairness.
Reflection
Leaving Belfast, I felt deeply inspired by Household’s mix of warmth and pragmatism. They operate with a rare blend of artistic ambition and grounded realism. Their success isn’t measured in size or scale, but in the depth of the relationships they build and the integrity they maintain.
Household’s approach reframed what I think “financial sustainability” means. It’s not necessarily about financial growth - it’s about stability, transparency and care. It’s about building an ecosystem that supports both artists and communities to thrive together, at a pace that feels human.
For Flos Collective, this visit was a gentle but profound reminder that sustainability can look like slowing down. It can mean focusing on the relationships, values and methods that will still matter years from now. Care can be both our guiding principle and our survival strategy.
– Esme, Co-Director, Flos Collective
