The Architecture of Cultural Capital
Cultural strategy that turns collections, estates and places into lasting capital.
ArtisDomus is a cultural strategy practice led by its founder, Dr Polina Surina. It advises owners of artists’ estates, private collections, heritage properties, hotels and brands, independently of any gallery. The result is a collection, programme or structure with a clear purpose, sound governance and a sustainable financial model.
Contents
What the practice does
Strategy, curation and governance for four kinds of owner.
Each kind of owner arrives with a different question. The work starts from that question and from what the owner needs the art to do, and it ends with a written plan the owner can act on.
“Every competitor claims art and culture. What actually makes ours different, and how early does it have to start?”
Collections and cultural programmes for developments, hotels, members’ clubs and public spaces. Developers, hotel groups, club operators 02Luxury and brands“We fund a dozen cultural things and I cannot explain why.”
Cultural strategy, artist collaborations and partnership structures for maisons and groups. Maisons, groups and their foundations 03Private capital and collections“Decades of buying have produced something that behaves like an institution but is owned personally.”
Governance, acquisition policy and collection strategy for families and their offices. Families, single-family offices, private banks 04Foundations and legacy“The founder is gone and the board does not know what the collection is for any more.”
Succession strategy for artists’ estates, whether to set up a foundation, and partnerships with institutions. Artists’ estates, boards and trustees
Recent work
Polina Surina curated the collection at AKI, One Cavendish Square.
“…curated by Dr Polina Surina and Virginie Puertolas Syn”
House of Coco on the AKI collection, 17 October 2025.
- Asset
- AKI, One Cavendish Square, London: a restaurant in a Grade II listed former banking hall.
- Scope
- Art direction and curation of the collection, with works commissioned for the site.
- Selection
- Ten works chosen from roughly one hundred candidates.
- Outcome
- The engagement was renewed the following year for a brand activation.
AKI, One Cavendish Square · Case study. The engagement, the two works made for AKI and fourteen photographs of the works in place.
The Arbour, Malta
- Asset
- Private members’ club, St Julian’s, Malta.
- Mandate
- Cultural and spatial strategy developed alongside the architectural and interior-design process.
- Approach
- A collection conceived around materiality, tactility, light and Mediterranean modernism, with a limited number of works integrated into the architecture rather than presented as a gallery display.
- Status
- In progress.
Founder
ArtisDomus is led by its founder, Dr Polina Surina.
Polina Surina founded the practice and leads every engagement personally. Her name is on the written work each decision rests on. The practice therefore accepts a limited number of mandates.
Current work spans France, Belgium, Switzerland, Malta, the United Kingdom and the GCC.
- PhD in Economics
- Oxford Executive Programme in Real Estate
- Sotheby’s Institute of Art: contemporary art, art business and curation
- Curator of the AKI collection, One Cavendish Square, London
Polina Surina, founder · Her background, her training and how she works. Qualifications and competencies · Her doctorate, her training in real estate and the art market, and what she advises on in each area.
Method
Every project starts with a written plan.
Before anything is bought or commissioned, ArtisDomus writes down what the place should say, to whom, and why each work belongs there. This plan is called the thesis.
- Understand the owner and the place. Who owns it, who it is for, and who will actually be in the room.
- Map the field. Museums, foundations, collectors, galleries and artists who can carry the project.
- Write the thesis. What the collection has to say, and what to leave out so that it can say it.
- Place each work. Every work has its place and a stated reason for being there.
- Programme and activate. A collection creates lasting value through what happens around it.
Each candidate work is scored against weighted criteria set for the project: the artist’s institutional record and upcoming museum programme, the gallery’s readiness to build a shared programme, price against comparable artists, and whether the work could be replaced within the collection.
Acquisition policy · Glossary. What the UK museum accreditation standard says such a policy must contain, and who has to approve it.
The approach, phase by phase · Four phases, the checks made on every work before payment, and the document each phase ends with.
Independence
Only the owner pays the practice.
No commission is taken from galleries, and no discount is kept back. Every term negotiated for the owner is passed on in full and disclosed in writing. Better terms buy more work, and the fee stays the same.
This matters because, in this field, the person who recommends a purchase often gets a share of it back. That is the conflict of interest. It decides what gets bought long before anyone talks about meaning.
Discounts belong to the client, and the contract has to say so · Reference. The five clauses the practice writes into an engagement letter, and what a gallery invoice does not show.
Artists
Artists the practice has worked with.
Each profile shows the work first, then the artist’s training, public collections and exhibitions, and the project the work was selected for.
Albano Hernández b. 1988
Cambridge
Royal College of Art, London, MA Painting
Selected for AKI, One Cavendish Square
Daniel Knorr b. 1968
Berlin and Hong Kong
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Selected for AKI, One Cavendish Square
Ryan Gander b. 1976
Suffolk and London
Rijksakademie, Amsterdam; Jan van Eyck, Maastricht
Selected for AKI, One Cavendish Square
Manifesto starting with same word. Courtesy of the artist.
Berta Fischer b. 1973
Berlin
Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, Germany
Eliška Konečná b. 1992
Prague
Kunsthaus Hamburg, Germany
Pavel Dušek b. 1992
Prague
Academy of Fine Arts, Prague
Romain Cadilhon b. 1984
Athens
La Cambre, Brussels, MFA
Benjamin Spiers b. 1972
London
Goldsmiths, London, under Peter Doig
Will St. John b. 1983
New York City
American Academy in Rome
Pia Camil b. 1980
Mexico City
Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico
What this practice does not do
ArtisDomus does not take on four kinds of work.
- No resale brokerage. Brokerage and strategic advisory require different incentives; the practice is structured exclusively to represent the owner.
- No decoration. Filling a wall to a budget and a delivery date is a different business, done well by people who do only that.
- No commission from a seller, in any form. No rebate, no discount kept back, no introducer’s fee. Only the owner pays.
- No work whose reputational risks cannot be checked. Deciding whom to refuse is part of the job.
Clients can see these limits before the first conversation, and hold the practice to them afterwards.
How an art advisor is paid, and where the conflicts sit · Reference. What auction houses publish, what advisors keep to themselves, and what the third refusal above removes.
About the practice · What the practice is for, the four roles and who pays each one, and who does the work.
Reference library
Guides on the questions owners ask.
The library has 50 short guides and definitions on buying, checking, moving, insuring and passing on art.
All pages · The four areas, the artist pages and the French edition.
Writing · Essays by Dr Polina Surina on biennales, fairs and the institutions around them.
Contact
Enquiries by email.
ArtisDomus works with family offices, developers and private collectors.
ad@Write to the practiceOr read the library first
Current work spans France, Belgium, Switzerland, Malta, the United Kingdom and the GCC. Working languages: English and Russian.
Contact · What to put in a first message, and what happens next.