MLitt in Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art)
At a time of unprecedented instability for societies across the globe, with creative practitioners and arts ecosystems facing stark challenges, it is heartening to see the many different ways in which our students in the MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) programme have continued to make work over the last few months, under pandemic restrictions. The projects and research they are presenting speak not only of resilience and a deep commitment to contributing meaningful conversations and connections at a time of isolation, but also their ability to rethink what creative practice means and how it can retain a vitality and relevance in today’s uncertain world.
Their Degree Show presentation proposes empowering and nuanced reframings of identity, through Cat Dunn’s multi-layered digital project NOWYOUSEEUS, platforming the lived experiences of womxn of colour with Afro-Caribbean hair, Hannah Braithwaite’s publication having been touched on the surface, focusing on the experiences of three queer women and their relationship to queer space and queer friendship, and Beatriz Lobo Britto’s research on decolonial curatorial approaches drawing together Black Feminist Poethics methodology and Lygia Clark’s practice in order to conceptualize a practice of refusal.
A parallel concern has been how to support artists to continue to make work outside of the studio, particularly for Hannah Bennassi, whose publication Expanded Attitudes has provided a space for three contemporary painters to reflect on their practice and experiment with different working processes during lockdown, and Joseph Henry, producer of the film Healing In A Broken World, interweaving musicians’ and artists’ appeals to creativity as a form of therapy that can help us adapt and bounce back.
Interlinked with this is the consideration of how to positively influence local art scenes through curatorial research. Dia Cao and Luke Liu have used the lockdown period to interview artists and curators where they live, assembling the digital archives Dia-Logue and Hemp Rope, from which embedded curatorial interventions will ensue.
The last few months have also provided impetus for reimagining and interrogating the boundaries of what curators do. Through both writing and video, Grace Jackson has explored the work of Vaginal Crème Davis resulting in the dual project Unruly forms of Care and From My Bedroom to Yours, in which she explores Davis’ work through academic and amateur curatorial methods, by obscuring binaries. Yihang Hu’s on-line exhibition Phenakites are forever draws our attention to deception as both social phenomenon and preamble to change, while Claude Chan’s dissertation delves into the possibilities of expanding posthuman curatorial practices.
Work by Cecelia Graham, Kate Holford, Katherine Murphy, Alison O’Shea, Shalmali Shetty, Grace Thomson, Marianne Vosloo and Katarzyna Zawada, who are pursuing extended study, will be presented in the Showcase throughout the Autumn and spans themes of care, interventions in public space, inequalities laid bare by Covid, play, hauntology, fiction and digital activism. These will be presented on the platform over the coming months. All of these students, both showcased here and those selecting to extend their study over the next few months have shown an incredible amount of integrity, creativity and resilience despite the great many challenges with which the context has presented them. They are an ethical, articulate and truly caring group of curatorial researchers and practitioners.
As well as commending our students for the bold and intricate ways in which they have carved out spaces for curatorial agency, we would like to warmly thank this year’s Visiting Tutors James Bell, Judit Bodor, Gordon Douglas, Patrick Jameson, Ainslie Roddick and Max Slaven, whose perspectives and continued encouragement have thoroughly supported, enhanced and grown the programme in an array of innovative ways as we have worked across the digital platforms and navigated the complications of the current moment.
Monica Laiseca and Dr Alexandra Ross
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