INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

Carolina Rito and Bill Balaskas (Eds.) TABLE OF CONTENTS 8 INTRODUCTION Carolina Rito and Bill Balaskas

32 124 200 CURATORIAL RESEARCH TAKE A DEEP BREATH IN: CONFIDENCE IN AS THE PRACTICE OF “MUSEUM AS PRAXIS,” PRACTICE: POSITIONING COMMONING INAUGURATED IN INSTITUTIONAL AND Je Yun Moon OCTOBER 2035 INDIVIDUAL CREATIVE Nora Sternfeld RESEARCH AS 44 PARA-ACADEMIC WHAT IS THE 136 Sian Vaughan CURATORIAL DOING? SIMPLY STORIES: Carolina Rito NOT HIS, HERS, 214 OR—WORSE—THEORIES ARTS ORGANISATIONS, 62 ruangrupa (farid HIGHER EDUCATION EXHIBITIONARY rakun and Leonhard INSTITUTIONS, AND PRACTICES AT THE Bartolomeus) THE COLLABORATIVE INTERSECTION OF IMPERATIVE ACADEMIC RESEARCH 156 Andrea Phillips AND PUBLIC DISPLAY AUTOHISTORIA AS PRAXIS Joasia Krysa Mélanie Bouteloup 226 “WHERE IS THE 76 170 KNOWLEDGE WE HAVE ALL THOSE THINGS “IT’S ALL ABOUT LOST IN INFORMATION?”: ARE ALSO OURS: TRUST”: REFRAMING SPECULATIVE RESEARCH DE LO BLANDO EN THE CURATOR AS AND DIGITAL LO CURATORIAL PRACTITIONER RESEARCHER WHAT IS MEANING(FUL) METHODOLOGIES ENACTING THE INSTITUTION Carolina Cerón Emily Pringle Anthony Downey

88 180 250 THE CURATORIAL AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE NETWORKED MEDIA AND NOTES TOWARDS FINAL DECADE: THE CASE THE RISE OF ALTERNATIVE IMAGINING A OF THE CITADEL INSTITUTIONS: ART UNIVERS(E)ITY Vali Mahlouji AND COLLABORATION OTHERWISE AFTER 2008 Pujita Guha and 110 Bill Balaskas Abhijan Toto for the DISCURSIVE PRACTICE: Forest Curriculum THE ROLE OF PUBLIC PRACTICE IN THE MUSEUM Michael Birchall 264 BIOGRAPHIES

271 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In their edited book Curating Research, Paul O’Neill and EXHIBITIONARY Mick Wilson describe two modes of research through curating: “researching within the exhibition-making” and PRACTICES AT THE “exhibition as a research action itself.”2 Simon Sheikh further develops the la!er proposition in his chapter, INTERSECTION OF “Towards the Exhibition as Research,” in the same ACADEMIC RESEARCH publication, arguing that: 1 The curatorial project—including its most AND PUBLIC DISPLAY dominant form, the exhibition—should thus not only be thought of as a form of mediation of research but also as a site for carrying out this research, as a place for enacted research. Research here is not only that which comes before realisation but also that which is realised throughout actualisation. That which would otherwise be thought of as formal means of transmi!ing knowledge—such as design structures, display models and perceptual experiments—is here an integral part of the curatorial mode of address, its content production, its proposition.3

To position the exhibition “as research” necessitates consideration of the various contexts in which exhibition- making takes place and the impact on how meanings are produced. One such context to consider is that which situates exhibitionary practices at the intersection of academic 1 — This text is the research and public display, with particular reference to second expanded iteration of an earlier exhibition venues in academic institutions where research text of the same title, naturally takes place. While there is a wealth of historical originally commissioned for the edited volume: and contemporary examples of “university galleries” one Anita Seppä, Henk Slager and Jan Kaila, eds., Futures of Artistic Research: At the 2 — Paul O’Neill and Mick Wilson, eds., 3 — Simon Sheikh, “Towards the Intersection of Utopia, Curating Research (London: Open Exhibition as Research,” in Curating Academia and Power Editions, 2015), 17. Research, eds. Paul O’Neill and Mick (Helsinki: The Academy Wilson (London: Open Editions, 2015), Joasia Krysa of Fine Arts, 2017). 63 40. can point to, I am trying to argue for a distinction here as and at the same time the activity feeds into the overall in the case of Exhibition Research Lab (ERL)—an academic research output of the academic institutions as well as its research centre and a public venue located at Liverpool public engagement, and the artistic programme at ERL. School of Art and Design.4

This essay explores the relationship between research and curatorial practice, focusing on exhibition-making practices and the understanding of exhibition as not simply the display of objects of research but as the site of research, and consequently as a form of critical inquiry and knowledge production in itself. Taking ERL as a case in point, the essay extends the discussion to consider the specificity of the context within which such practices take place.

Increasingly, such exhibition-research spaces are not only linked to, or explicitly located in, academic institutions but also have become underpinned by more formalised partnerships with cultural institutions—offering a particular model of applied research, knowledge production, and Joasia Krysa

INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION dissemination, with demonstrable wider impact. In the

specific case of ERL, a number of university-funded Exhibition Research Lab home page, academics are embedded directly within specific cultural h!ps://www.exhibition-research-lab.co.uk/. institutions in the city, including Tate Liverpool and

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH Liverpool Biennial. Such a university-cultural partnership However, rather than delivering a regular artistic model provides the context for practice-based, applied programme as other cultural institutions in the city do, research through curatorial practice. A feedback loop is ERL generates a programme that is overtly research- activated where research is applied to the institutions’ focused and driven by agendas related to the activities

artistic programmes—which in turn impacts upon practice— EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC DISPLAY of the embedded academics in partnership with cultural organisations. Although such a focus on research is not new

4 — ERL was established in 2012 January 18, 2020, https://www.ljmu. in the cultural field, ERL aims to articulate its practices (originally as “Exhibition Research ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/ differently. Firstly, it a!empts to bring together academic Centre”) as part of Liverpool John art-labs/expertise/exhibition- Moores University’s School of Art research-lab, http://www.exhibition- and non-academic (cultural) contexts resulting in what and Design and was developed in research-lab.co.uk/; and “The Big can be described as a circular research-knowledge-public collaboration with a Tate Liverpool- Interview: Antony Hudek,” The Double funded post holder, at the time Negative, April 30, 2013, http://www. Antony Hudek. See “Exhibition thedoublenegative.co.uk/2013/04/the- Research Lab: Institute of Art and big-interview-antony-hudek/. 64 Technology,” Ljmu.ac.uk, accessed 65 display model. Secondly, it a!empts to rethink the idea of EXHIBITION AS AN EPISODIC INSTANCE: a public venue itself, shifting from the notion of a typical LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL 2016 (university) gallery to something closer to a public-facing laboratory, where the process of research, knowledge Liverpool Biennial 2016 (LB2016) was developed by a production, and display are somewhat conflated and curatorial team, who took the idea of simultaneity—as operate in public—thus evoking, to some extent, the idea opposed to linear narration—as the grounding principle of transdisciplinary methodologies in action. of the exhibition structure and the curatorial method.5 It was constructed as a story in six “episodes,” with various Against this backdrop, the question becomes how such fictional worlds sited across galleries, public spaces, and an approach might advance more general thinking about disused buildings, as well as online including within the research as a way of addressing urgent cultural questions. videogame, Minecraft.6 Many of the artists featured in What makes exhibition research a distinctive proposition? the Biennial made work for more than one episode, some Thinking about curating in this way would seem not only works were repeated across different episodes, and some to have the potential to facilitate non-regulated relations venues hosted more than one episode. ERL itself hosted between human subjects but also to demonstrate the a portion of one of the episodes (the “software episode”), potential for new epistemological and ontological insights thus becoming a node in distributed research. Responding into subject-object relations more broadly and, thus, to to the episodic structure of the exhibition, the former break down the separation between curatorial subject and Cains Brewery building—one of the main exhibition curated object. Joasia Krysa venues—was organised around the architectural structure INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION To reflect a range of approaches this could take, I will refer to specific examples of projects from my own experience 5 — The 2016 Liverpool Biennial project by the artist Suzanne Treister working in an embedded capacity with Liverpool Biennial curatorial team comprised: Francesca entitled “HFT The Gardner,” which

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH and simultaneously leading research activities and public Bertolotti-Bailey, Polly Brannan, was presented at ERL. See “HFT The Steven Cairns, Rosie Cooper, Joasia Gardner, Suzanne Treister, part of programme of ERL. These projects are: Liverpool Biennial Krysa, Raimundas Malašauskas, Liverpool Biennial 2016,” Exhibition- 2016; The Serving Library’s discursive programme for Francesco Manacorda, Sandeep research-lab.co.uk, accessed January Parmar, Sally Tallant, Ying Tan, and 18, 2020, https://www.exhibition- Liverpool Biennial 2018; the doctoral research thesis Dominic Willsdon. “Liverpool Biennial research-lab.co.uk/exhibitions/hft- 2016,” Biennial.com, accessed January the-gardner-suzanne-treister-part-of- exhibition “Catch | Bounce: Towards a Relational Ontology EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC DISPLAY 18, 2020, https://www.biennial.com/ liverpool-biennial-2016/; “Minecraft of the Digital in Art Practice” (2017); and, most recently, a archive/2016. Infinity Project,” Biennial.com, prototype exhibition project “Recurrent Queer Imaginaries” accessed January 18, 2020, https:// 6 — For a more detailed description www.biennial.com/minecraft-infinity- (2019–20). of the “episodes,” see “About,” project; “Online,” Biennial.com, Biennial.com, accessed January accessed January 18, 2020, https:// 18, 2020, https://www.biennial. www.biennial.com/2016/exhibition/ com/2016/exhibition/about/. The online-2016; and “Creating the World’s research expertise of one of ERL’s Largest Virtual Sculpture in Minecraft,” staff members contributed to the Biennial.com, accessed January 18, curatorial team specifically by feeding 2020, https://www.biennial.com/ into the conceptualisation of the blog/28/09/2016/creating-the-worlds- 66 67 “software episode.” This included a largest-virtual-sculpture-in-minecraft. of Collider (itself a new commission from the artist Andreas Angelidakis), which acted as a “connector” between works by various other artists and demarcated different episodes.7

Considering how research was intrinsically embedded in the curatorial process, it can be claimed that the 2016 Biennial exhibition became one large research site. At the same time, the Biennial pointed to the wider issue of how the transnational biennial format more generally represents the world as an amalgamation of different cultures, operating episodically across times and places, in a dynamic relation between the local and the universal. In this respect, the Biennial can be understood as engaging with notions of “contemporaneity,” a key concept in envisioning the temporal complexity that follows on from

the coming together of different times, not only in terms of Installation view, Suzanne Treister, HFT The Gardener, the processes of globalisation but also in light of what has 2014–15, Exhibition Research Lab (ERL), Liverpool Biennial 2016. Courtesy of ERL.

been described as planetary computation. In this scenario, Joasia Krysa both biennial exhibition-making and its temporal form INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION became an active site of research during LB2016, with the discursive element further reflected in the conference and a special issue of the online journal Stages.8 EXHIBITION AS DISCURSIVE EVENT: THE SERVING LIBRARY NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

The next example further challenges traditional ways of thinking about exhibitions and exhibition venues, and 7 — This issue is discussed in more issue-6/-chris-where-have-you-been-i- leads towards a more dynamic research form. For the 2018 depth in “The Biennial Condition,” dont-know. EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC DISPLAY volume 6 of Liverpool Biennial’s Liverpool Biennial (LB2018), ELR was transformed into a journal Stages, particularly in the 8 — The Liverpool Biennial 2016 discursive space by The Serving Library (TSL). Founded in opening text of the volume: Joasia conference “The Biennial Condition: Krysa “Introduction: The Biennial On Contemporaneity and the New York in 2011 to develop a shared toolkit for artist- Condition,” Stages 6 (April 2017), Episodic” took place October 7–8, centred education and discourse, TSL comprises an annual https://www.biennial.com/journal/ 2016. See “The Biennial Condition: On issue-6/introduction-the-biennial- Contemporaneity and the Episodic,” journal (The Serving Library Annual), an archive of framed condition- ; and in the conversation Biennial.com, accessed January 18, objects on permanent display, and a public programme of between Francesco Manacorda and 2020, https://www.biennial.com/ Raimundas Malašauskas: “- Chris, events/the-biennial-condition-on- Where Have You Been? - I Don’t contemporaneity-and-the-episodic; Know!!!,” Stages 6 (April 2017), and Stages 6 (April 2017), https://www. 68 https://www.biennial.com/journal/ biennial.com/journal/issue-6. 69 a discursive format.10 Again, as in the previous example, the results of this were published in an edited volume of LB journal Stages.11

EXHIBITION AS THESIS: CATCH | BOUNCE

“Catch | Bounce: Towards a Relational Ontology of the Digital in Art Practice,” is an example of a project operating in the space between an artwork and a doctoral research thesis. Presented to the public at ERL, the work was developed by James Charlton, an artist and researcher based at Colab, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, who spent six months at ERL working on the 12 Installation view, The Serving Library, Exhibition Research Lab (ERL), project before its public presentation and examination. Liverpool Biennial 2018. Courtesy of ERL. Building on New Zealand’s “Post-Object Art” practices of the late 1960s, the project proposed an expanded sculptural practice in order to interrogate the ontology of workshops and events.9 Prior to participation in LB2018, Joasia Krysa “the digital.” On view at ERL was a series of twenty ceiling

INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION TSL was invited for a year-long residency at ERL, 2017– mounted mechanical systems that raised and dropped 2018, during which the ERL “gallery” space served as basketballs; self-service swipe card terminals that served a satellite seminar room to host occasional classes for texts; a looped video; and life-sized CNC dogs. Together, university-level students from art schools across the world, the exhibited project operated “as a structurally discrete

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH a regular series of public talks, and exhibitions built upon event that exists only in continuous co-emergent relations TSL’s ever-expanding archival material. Occasionally drawn with the analogue; a discrete relational structure.”13 into TSL’s activities, the display of these artefacts becomes effectively a pedagogical resource. For LB2018, TSL

curated a series of interdisciplinary events by speakers from EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC DISPLAY 10 — For more details on the 11 — Stages 8 (January 2019), PDF, diverse fields programmed in amongst TSL’s “collection” of programme of talks see “The Serving https://www.biennial.com/journal/ displayed objects. It turned the speakers into a part of the Library,” Biennial.com, accessed issue-8; https://www.biennial.com/ January 18, 2020, https://www.biennial. files/pdfs/7799/stages-8-combined- collection as much as the artworks, and the exhibition into com/2018/exhibition/artists/the- web.pdf. serving-library; “Beautiful World, Were [sic] Are You? Talks programme for 12 — “James Charlton, 2016/2017,” Liverpool Biennial 2018,” Exhibition- Exhibition-research-lab.co.uk, 9 — The Serving Library is an Exhibition-research-lab.co.uk, research-lab.co.uk, accessed January accessed January 18, 2020, https:// artist-run nonprofit organisation accessed January 18, 2020, https:// 18, 2020, https://www.exhibition- www.exhibition-research-lab.co.uk/ founded in 2011: “Introduction,” www.exhibition-research-lab. research-lab.co.uk/events/beautiful- residencies/james-charlton-2016-2017/. Servinglibrary.org, accessed January co.uk/fellowships/the-serving- world-were-are-you-talks-programme- 70 18, 2020, http://www.servinglibrary. library-2017-2018/. 71 for-liverpool-biennial-2018/. 13 — Ibid. org/; “The Serving Library, 2017/18,” A particularly distinctive aspect of this collaboration EXHIBITION AS PROTOTYPE: between ERL and the artist-researcher, was the RECURRENT QUEER IMAGINARIES simultaneous use of ERL as a residency space, a studio, and a lab where exhibition-prototyping, production, and “Recurrent Queer Imaginaries,” is an exhibition of queer public-unfolding of the project took place. Furthermore, the manifestos and the new artificial intelligence (AI) entity specific nature of the research entailed in this project also “Mo!o Assistant,” developed by artist-researchers Helen lends itself to this discussion in that it questions the idea Pritchard and Winnie Soon.14 Presented at ERL between of what constitutes an object—that is, an art, curatorial, November 2019 and January 2020, the exhibition included or research object—and an exhibition of such object(s) as a printed manifestos, a projection, onto a wall, of the “Mo!o sum of parts or totality. Assistant” continually writing mo!os, a line of code printed on the gallery wall, and another wall projection of a diagram from the project’s website underlying the process of development. The project takes as its starting point “the histories and uses of queer manifestos found in the radical book shops and libraries of the Kings Cross and Euston areas in London, sites of historical significance for queer spaces affected by the changing urban fabric of London. The AI entity “Mo!o Assistant” was developed using Joasia Krysa manifestos and zines (the earliest wri!en in 1971) as source

INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION texts for machine learning and generative processes: it uses “recurrent neural networks” to train and process sequences of collective voices, as well as a “diastic algorithm” to establish a poetic structure for the generated texts.15 The

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH seed text “Not for self, but for all” is used in different parts of the text generation. As new manifestos are added to the system remotely, the project is continually developing while also inviting the audience to interpret mo!os anew EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC DISPLAY

14 — “Recurrent Queer Imaginaries, or “diastic method” in relation to James Charlton, “Catch | Bounce: Towards a Relational Ontology of Helen Pritchard and Winnie Soon,” poetry, see Michael Peverett, “Mac the Digital in Art Practice,” 2017. Installation view, Exhibition Research Exhibition-research-lab.co.uk, Low’s diastic process (in Gale Nelson’s Lab (ERL), 2017. Courtesy of ERL. accessed January 18, 2020, https:// stare decisis),” Intercapillaryspace www.exhibition-research-lab. (blog), accessed January 18, 2020, co.uk/exhibitions/recurrent-queer- http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot. imaginaries/. com/2012/03/mac-lows-diastic- process-in-gale.html; and “eDiastic,” 15 — The term “diastic algorithm” Eddeaddad.net, accessed January 18, draws upon Jackson Mac Low’s 2020, http://www.eddeaddad.net/ 72 73 notion of the “diastic technique” eDiastic/. each time they visit.16 As such, the project is presented In situating exhibitionary practices at the intersection as “research in progress” with the underlying quality of a of academic research and public display in such a way, prototype—a research exhibition in generative form, and a traditional notions of the gallery are expanded to the prototype for future versioning. idea of the “lab,” where experimental thinking and making can take place and where curatorial knowledge is enacted, produced, and made public. These conditions also challenge straightforward relationships between the curator, exhibition, and context, where curators can be understood as becoming involved in the delivery of research activities as objects for public display. Curatorial practice becomes a dynamic process of se!ing up frameworks for the experimentation and dissemination of ideas in non- propositional and speculative forms. In this sense—if indeed this is a lab of sorts where research is undertaken— it is one where artistic, not strictly scientific (as the notion of a “lab” might suggest), experimentation takes place.17

The exhibition lab would seem to acknowledge itself as a Joasia Krysa complex site of mediation, where research and practice

INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION come together and where phenomena are excavated or constructed for their underlying discursive and non- Helen Pritchard and Winnie Soon, “Recurrent Queer Imaginaries,” 2019. discursive layers. This indicates the potential of curating Installation view, Exhibition Research Lab (ERL), 2019. Courtesy of ERL. as a research action itself, where the relations between

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH curator, exhibition, and the social and public context in In considering these examples, one might ask: what which curating takes place can be seen as an active site of happens to our understanding of research, exhibition, and knowledge production in the making. In this model, research lab practices when we draw the spaces in which they are questions are not necessarily answered but recombined in

performed together? What might it mean to curate and/or EXHIBITIONARY PRACTICES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC DISPLAY the very act of curating and making research public, thus research that which is non-propositional? To what extent emphasising the actualisation of experimental forms of can the exhibition venue simultaneously be conceptualised curatorial research. as a research lab, and to what effect? How does this change our understanding of the experiment and of research forms that are non-hypothesis-driven? 17 — For an extended discussion on Press, forthcoming), https:// the notion of “lab” across diverse manifold.umn.edu/projects/the-lab- disciplines see the forthcoming book; and the project website “A book: Lori Emerson, Jussi Parikka, Proposal,” Whatisamedialab.com, 16 — “Recurrent Queer Imaginaries,” www.exhibition-research-lab. and Darren Wershler, The Lab Book: accessed January 18, 2020, https:// Exhibition-research-lab.co.uk, co.uk/exhibitions/recurrent-queer- Situated Practices in Media Studies whatisamedialab.com/. 74 accessed January 18, 2020, https:// imaginaries/. 75 (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Mélanie Bouteloup is Co-founder and with several research projects exploring BIOGRAPHIES the current Director of Bétonsalon – pedagogy, digital cultures, and human Centre for Art and Research and Villa rights in the Middle East. Recent Vassilieff. Over the last fifteen years, and upcoming publications include: she has curated numerous projects in Unbearable States: Digital Media, various forms that anchor research in Cultural Activism and Human Rights Bill Balaskas is an artist, theorist, and ruangrupa, publishing books, managing society on process-based, collaborative, (forthcoming, 2021); Displacement educator, whose research is located a gallery, undertaking art research, and and discursive levels, following different Activities: Contemporary Art and the at the intersection of politics, new organising karaoke events, amongst time spans, in cooperation with various Refugee Condition (Berlin: Sternberg media, and contemporary visual other activities. In 2014, he received local, national, and international Press, 2020); Critique in Practice: Renzo culture. He is an Associate Professor a grant from the Japan Foundation to organisations. In 2012, Bouteloup was Martens’ Episode III (Enjoy Poverty) and Director of Research, Business undertake an internship as an Assistant an Associate Curator, alongside (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019); Don’t and Innovation at the School of Art Curator at the Hiroshima City Museum Artistic Director Okwui Enwezor, of Shrink Me to the Size of a Bullet: The La Triennale, Paris—an event organised Works of Hiwa K (London: Koenig & Architecture, Kingston University, of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Aside on the initiative of the Ministry Books, 2017); and Future Imperfect: London. His works have been widely from his work with ruangrupa, he has of Culture and Communication/ Contemporary Art Practices and exhibited internationally, in galleries, also undertaken research and exhibited Directorate-General for Artistic Cultural Institutions in the Middle East museums, festivals, and public spaces. with different partners, such as Jakarta Creation (DGCA), the Centre national (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016). In 2019, He has received awards and grants Arts Council and various NGOs, and des arts plastiques (CNAP), and the he launched a new series of books, from: the European Investment Bank he has taught in an art school. Since Palais de Tokyo. In 2014, she was Research/Practice (Sternberg Press) (EIB) Institute; Comité International 2019, he has been a Curator at the conferred with the French honour, with individual volumes on the work of d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA); Open Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media Knight of the Order of Arts and Le!ers. Michael Rakowitz, Heba Y. Amin, and Society Foundations; European Cultural (YCAM). Larissa Sansour. Foundation; National Sculpture Factory Carolina Cerón works and lives in (Ireland); and the Association for Art Michael Birchall is Curator of Public BIOGRAPHIES Bogotá, Colombia. She is currently Pujita Guha and Abhijan Toto founded History (UK), amongst others. He is Practice at Tate Liverpool and a an Assistant Professor in Curating at and co-direct the Forest Curriculum,

INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION an Editor of the Leonardo Electronic Senior Lecturer in Exhibition Studies the Art Department of Universidad which is an itinerant and nomadic Almanac (LEA), published by MIT at Liverpool John Moores University. de los Andes. She is interested in platform for “indisciplinary” research Press. His writings have also appeared His curatorial practice and research initiatives on experimental ephemera and mutual co-learning. It proposes in edited books and other publications concerns socially engaged art, and alternative sites for curatorial to assemble a located critique of the such as: Journal of Visual Culture, Third performance, exhibition histories, discourse. She also performs—from Anthropocene via the “naturecultures”

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH Text, and Revista ARTA. Originally and notions of publicness in museums. an eminently self-reflexive position— of Zomia, the forested belt that trained as an economist, he holds a He has previously held curatorial the task of organising, exposing, connects south and southeast Asia. The PhD in Critical Writing in Art & Design appointments at: Walter Phillips interpreting, reading, and writing Forest Curriculum works with artists, and an MA in Communication Art & Gallery, Banff Centre, Alberta; Western about art and the metabolisation of researchers, indigenous organisations Design from the Royal College of Art. Front, Vancouver; and Künstlerhaus, other sorts of viscosities. She holds a and thinkers, musicians, and activists. Stu!gart. He has lectured at Zurich BFA from the Universidad de los Andes, Abhijan Toto is an independent curator Leonhard Bartolomeus is a curator, University of the Arts and his writing a postgraduate diploma in exhibition and researcher, who has previously researcher, and passionate teacher. has appeared in: Frieze; ARKEN format design from the Elisava School, worked with the Dhaka Art Summit; He graduated from the Jakarta Bulletin; On Curating; Modern Painters; Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Bellas Artes Projects, Manila; and Institute of Arts, with a degree in C Magazine; Art & the Public Sphere; and an MA in Culture Industry from Council, Paris. He is the recipient ceramic craft. In 2012, he joined an as well as various catalogues and Goldsmiths, University of London. of the 2019 Lorenzo Bonaldi Award Art Critics and visual culture Writers’ monographs, such as Collective Good/ for Art, GAMeC, Bergamo. Pujita workshop organised by ruangrupa and, Collaborative Efforts (Stavanger: Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Guha is currently a GCLR Fellow at later on, he became involved in many Rogaland Kunstsenter, 2017). He co- Culture in the Middle East and North the University of California, Santa more of the collective’s programmes curated “O.K. – The Musical,” a socially- Africa, Birmingham City University. Barbara and is widely published on and events. From 2013 to 2017, he engaged long-term work by Christopher He sits on the editorial boards of Third south and southeast Asian cultures 264 was actively working as a member of Kline at Tate Liverpool in 2017. 265 Text and Digital War, and is affiliated and “ecosophical” thought. The Forest Curriculum organises exhibitions, and The Routledge Companion to Venice Architecture Biennale; Nam which time she established the Tate talks, film programmes, and other Art and Politics (London and New June Paik Art Center, Yongin; and Research Centre: Learning. In 2017, public activities in addition to leading York: Routledge, 2015). She has the Korean Cultural Centre (KCCUK), she was awarded an AHRC Leadership and conducting research groups and been appointed as an international London. From 2017 to 2018, she ran the Fellowship, which allowed her to independent investigations. It also Advisor for the first edition of the visual arts programme of the Korea/ take a sabbatical to examine how indulges in new forms of research in Helsinki Biennial, 2020, and Sapporo UK season, a programme of extensive collaborative, practice-led research can addition to teaching and developing International Art Festival (SIAF), cultural activities in collaboration with be embedded within art museums. Her programmes for academic institutions. 2020, Japan. twenty-one arts institutions in the UK, research has been brought together in The Forest Curriculum collaborates including: “I Believe My Works Are Still the publication, Rethinking Research in with institutions and organisations Vali Mahlouji is a curator, Advisor to Valid” by Kim Yong Ik, Spike Island, the Art Museum (London and New York: in south and southeast Asia and the British Museum and the Bahman Bristol; “Jewyo Rhii and Jihyun Jung: Routledge, 2019). In February 2019, beyond, including: the Arts Network Mohassess Estate, and Director of Dawn Breaks,” The Showroom, London; she was appointed Head of Research Asia (ANA) for “The Forest As School” the Kaveh Golestan Estate. In 2010, “Rehearsals from the Korean Avant- at Tate. Summer Academy programme; SAVVY he founded Archaeology of the Garde Performance Archive,” KCCUK, Contemporary, Berlin; Ghost:2561 art Final Decade (AOTFD), a nonprofit London. She is currently the Head of farid rakun was trained as an architect series, Bangkok; SUGAR Contemporary, curatorial platform which excavates Programmes at Liverpool Biennial. (B.Arch, Universitas Indonesia; Toronto; Hanoi DocLab; and cultural materials that have been She holds a doctorate in Curatorial/ M.Arch, Cranbrook Academy of Art), IdeasCity, New Museum, New York. subjected to erasure, censorship, Knowledge from Goldsmiths, University and wears different hats, depending and destruction. AOTFD has placed of London, where her doctoral on who is asking. A visiting lecturer Joasia Krysa is a curator and scholar artworks in international collections research delved into contemporary in the Department of Architecture, whose research spans contemporary including: Tate Modern, Smithsonian choreographic practice as a particular Universitas Indonesia, he is also a art, curating, and digital culture. She Institution, Musée d’Art Moderne de la strategy of performing exhibitions. member of the artists’ collective is Professor of Exhibition Research and Ville de Paris (MAM), British Museum, ruangrupa, with whom he co-curated Lab Leader of Exhibition Research and Los Angeles County Museum Andrea Phillips is BALTIC Professor Sonsbeek 2016’s transACTION, Arnhem,

Lab (ERL) at Liverpool John Moores of Art (LACMA). Mahlouji’s recent BIOGRAPHIES and Director of BxNU Research Netherlands. As an instigator, he has University, in partnership with curatorial work includes exhibitions Institute, Northumbria University & permeated various global institutions INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION Liverpool Biennial. She has curated at: the Dhaka Art Summit, 2018; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary such as: Le Centre Pompidou, Paris; exhibitions at the intersection of art Whitechapel Gallery, London; Garage Art. Andrea lectures and writes about Venice Biennale; National Museum and technology and commissioned Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; the economic and social construction of Modern and Contemporary Art online projects as part of the SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; FOAM, of public value within contemporary (MMCA), Seoul; Sharjah Biennial; São curatorial team for documenta 13, Amsterdam; MAXXI, Rome; Bergen art, the manipulation of forms of Paulo Biennial; Harun Farocki Institut

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH 2012; as Artistic Director of Kunsthal Assembly; Sursock Museum, Beirut. participation, and the potential of (HaFI), Dutch Art Institute (DAI); Aarhus, Denmark, 2012–15; and as An upcoming exhibition will take forms of political, architectural, and Creative Time, New York; Haute école Co-curator of Liverpool Biennial 2016 place at the Asia Art Centre (ACC), social reorganisation within artistic d’art et de design (HEAD), Geneva; and and 2018, amongst others. Her first Gwangju. He has been published by and curatorial culture. BAK basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. “software-kurator” experiment was various institutions and publishers, He has worked for Jakarta Biennale presented at Tate Modern in 2005 and including: Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Emily Pringle’s undergraduate and in different capacities since 2013, and published in Curating Immateriality: Guggenheim Museum, New York; Asia postgraduate training was in Fine currently serves as an Advisor. In Search for Spaces of The Curatorial Society Museum, New York; and Yale Art. During her doctoral research at (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2006). University Press. His upcoming book the University of London, she focused Carolina Rito is a researcher and Recent publications include the edited is being published by the Whitechapel on the relationship between artistic curator whose work is situated at books Systemics (or, Exhibition as Gallery, London, in 2020. ways of knowing and teaching. She the intersection between knowledge a Series) (Berlin: Sternberg Press, joined Tate in 2009, following ten production, the curatorial, and 2017) and Writing and Unwriting Je Yun Moon is a curator and writer years as a researcher and writer on contested historical narratives. She Media Art History: Erkki Kurenniemi from South Korea. She has worked museum education, creative learning, is Professor of Creative Practice in 2048 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, in the fields of art, architecture, and and socially-engaged art practice. Research, Research Centre for Arts, 2015) as well as chapters in Networks performance at: the Sonje Art Center, From 2010 to 2019 she was Head of Memory, and Communities, Coventry 266 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014) Seoul; Anyang Public Art Project; 267 Learning Practice and Research during University; an Executive Board Member of the Midlands Higher Education & Nora Sternfeld is an educator and Culture Forum; and a Research Fellow curator. She is currently documenta at the Institute of Contemporary Professor at the Kunsthochschule, History (IHC), Universidade Nova de Kassel. From 2012 to 2018 she was Lisboa. Rito is the Executive Editor Professor in Curating and Mediating of The Contemporary Journal and has Art at Aalto University, Helsinki. She published in international journals such is Co-director of the ECM (educating/ as King’s Review, Mousse Magazine, curating/managing) MA programme and Wrong Wrong. From 2017 to 2019, at the University of Applied Arts, she was Head of Public Programmes Vienna. With Renate Höllwart and and Research at No!ingham Elke Smodics, she is part of trafo.K: Contemporary. She holds a PhD in Office for Art, Education, and Critical Curatorial/Knowledge from Goldsmiths, Knowledge Production, Vienna. With University of London, where she also Irit Rogoff, Stefano Harney, Adrian taught from 2014 to 2016. She lectures Heathfield, Massimiliano Mollona, internationally—in Europe, South and Louis Moreno, she is part of America, and the Middle East—on her freethought, a platform for research, research and curatorial practice. education, and production in London. She publishes on contemporary art, ruangrupa is a Jakarta-based artists’ exhibition theory, education, the collective established in 2000. It is a politics of history, and anti-racism. nonprofit organisation that strives to support art within urban and cultural Sian Vaughan is a Reader in Research contexts by encouraging artists and Practice at Birmingham School of Art, individuals from other disciplines—such Birmingham City University. Broadly, as social sciences, politics, technology, her research interests concern the and media, amongst others—to pedagogies that underpin research in foster critical views in relation to art and design and the mediation of Indonesian urban contemporary issues. ruangrupa also produces public engagement with contemporary collaborative works in the form of art as well as its interpretation. Her art projects, such as exhibitions, research focuses on artistic practices festivals, art labs, workshops, and that involve archives, history, and research, as well as books, magazines, institutions, with a particular focus and online journal publications. on creative research methods as ruangrupa has been involved in many knowledge generation. Her educational collaborative and exchange projects, research is focused on the practices including participating in: Gwangju and pedagogies of doctoral education Biennale, 2002 & 2018; Istanbul and, in particular, how these respond Biennial, 2005; Asia Pacific Triennial to creative practice in research. She of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, enjoys working collaboratively and 2012; Singapore Biennale, 2011; São across disciplines and has disseminated Paulo Biennial, 2014; Aichi Triennale, her work widely through peer- Nagoya, 2016; and Cosmopolis #1 Le reviewed chapters, journal articles, and Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2017. In 2016, conference papers on the subject of ruangrupa curated Sonsbeek 2016’s public art, museum studies, archives, transACTION, Arnhem, Netherlands. and education. ruangrupa is the curator of documenta 268 15, 2022. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project would not have been possible without the generous critical advice, institutional support, and practical help of numerous colleagues and friends. We would, first of all, like to thank all the authors for their participation in this publication, for the time taken to respond to our invitation, for their considered contributions, and, finally, for their patience throughout the editorial process. This publication was made possible thanks to the generous support of No!ingham Contemporary, Midlands Higher Education Culture Forum (Collaborative Research Working Group), Arts Council England, and Sternberg Press. We would especially like to acknowledge the support and enthusiasm throughout of: Sam Thorne, Jennie Syson, Rebecca Blackman, and Caroline Schneider.

The ideas that form the core of this publication were first tested in public events, closed-door seminars, and working group meetings that we co-convened in No!ingham and Coventry between 2018 and 2019. We are grateful to our colleagues who participated in these debates and for the thought-provoking conversations that started shaping this publication. We would like to acknowledge especially: Manuel Ángel Macia, Sally Bowden, Ma!hew Chesney, Heather Connelly, Tom Fisher, Tom Godfrey, Suzanne Golden, Paul Grainge, Duncan Higgins, Maria Hlavajova, Susanna Ison, Jill Journeaux, Barbara Ma!hews, Andrew Mowlah, Lucy Phillips, Irit Rogoff, Karen Salt, Joe Shaw, Nick Slater, Pat Thomson, Gavin Wadde, and Isobel Whitelegg.

At No!ingham Contemporary, we would like to thank all the colleagues who supported and were an integral part of the “Institution as Praxis” research strand, including the Public Programmes and Research team.

We also wish to thank Anna Canby Monk for her meticulous and rigorous copy-editing, which was essential to bring cohesion to a publication featuring diverse contributions.

271 INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS

NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

Published by Sternberg Press

Editors Carolina Rito Bill Balaskas

Contributors Ÿ 2020 Sternberg Press Bill Balaskas Ÿ 2020 the editors, the authors Michael Birchall ISBN 978-3-95679-506-0 Mélanie Bouteloup Carolina Cerón Publisher Anthony Downey Sternberg Press Pujita Guha and Abhijan Toto Caroline Schneider for the Forest Curriculum Karl-Marx-Allee 78 Joasia Krysa D-10243 Berlin Vali Mahlouji www.sternberg-press.com Je Yun Moon Andrea Phillips Distributed by The MIT Press, Emily Pringle Art Data, and Les presses Carolina Rito du réel ruangrupa (farid rakun and Leonhard Bartolomeus) This book was made possible Nora Sternfeld thanks to the generous support Sian Vaughan of the following partners:

Copy-editor Midlands Higher Education & Anna Canby Monk Culture Forum www.midlandshecf.org Design Rafaela DražiÊ Nottingham Contemporary Weekday Cross Nottingham NG1 2GB www.nottinghamcontemporary.org INSTITUTION AS PRAXIS PRAXIS AS INSTITUTION NEW CURATORIAL DIRECTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

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