Thursday 26 June 2014

phase 1a. Curatorial-Intensive


Phase 1a. Curatorial-Intensive was held from 11 - 14 June 2014. Lectures and workshops were conducted by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna from Barcelona-based independent curatorial office Latitudes and artist, curator and writer Heman Chong on 11 and 13 June respectively, with a full-day local fieldtrip to various art spaces on 12 June and a public symposium on 14 June. 

The curatorial-intensive focused on practices that engage with the production of knowledge; multifarious, relational and participatory. While providing scopes for intents and slippages, the production of knowledge is often opened to interpretative articulations and re-articulations, subjected to varying contexts of exhibition making and the very audiences that perform and shapes it production. Lectures and workshops therefore explored concepts of knowledge production in the realms of art, fiction, journalism, theory and other possibilities as well as introduced the participants to various modes of curatorial practice. Each facilitator lectured on a particular aspect of curatorial practice, sharing from each of their own experiences and particular modes of practice. The workshop sessions were an extension of lecture sessions. 

Local field trips to the Singapore Art Museum, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore and the NUS Museum provided participants with exposure to curatorial practices in relation to the spaces of specific local institutions. Finally, a public symposium titled When Does an Exhibition Begin and End? was treated as an occasion for participants to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. 

Lead Facilitators

Latitudes is an independent curatorial office initiated in April 2005 by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna, that works in an international context from and in Barcelona, Spain. They initiate and develop contemporary art projects in association with institutions and collaborate with artists in productions encompassing a range of organisational forms and scales: genres of display and presentation; editorial practice and publication; forms of assembly, hosting and programming; as well as theoretical and interpretative contexts. Their starting point is to advocate the work of artists we believe to be critically relevant to our times. Ongoing research includes micro-historical practices; context-specific, narrative- or process-based art; expectations of public participation; the function of the duo; and how art and artefacts relate with obsolescence and cultural worth.

Heman Chong is an artist, curator and writer. His art practice involves an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future. Charged with a conceptual drive, this research is then adapted into objects, images, installations, situations or texts. He participated in the 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008), Busan Biennale (2004) and represented Singapore at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). He is currently working on a yearlong curatorial collaboration between Witte de With and Spring Workshop entitled Moderation(s). He previously co-facilitated Curating Lab 2012: Curatorial Intensive and Internship Programme, Curating Labs 2009 and co-curated the accompanying Curating Labs: 100 Objects (Remixed) exhibition.

Curatorial-Intensive | in photos
 

Follow the Curating Lab 2014 participants' Intensive journeys through Day 1 to 3 here:



Friday 6 June 2014

common programme: Public Symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?"



Date: 14 June 2014
Time: 3.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, National Library Building, Level 5. Possibility Room

As part of Curating Lab 2014’s curatorial-intensive, the public symposium When Does an Exhibition Begin and End? brings together curators and artists working in Singapore to discuss their recent and ongoing projects. Addressing the format of the exhibition in terms of duration and process, the symposium will consist of two complimentary sessions that will reflect on the exhibition's capacity to articulate its own making and incorporate its own history. In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the symposium will further ponder on how the exhibition and today's art institutions are undergoing similar transformations and will consider how exhibitions produce knowledge through the format of conversations between curators and artists.

In the first session Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore) and artist Charles Lim, recently announced as Singapore’s Venice Biennale 2015 representatives, will talk about their ongoing professional collaboration including Lim's long-term SEA STATE project and the related solo exhibition In Search of Raffles’ Light (NUS Museum, 24 October 2013–27 April 2014). Mustafa and Lim will address these projects' engagement with the maritime history of Singapore in its intersection with the present while speculating about their approach to future exhibitions.

In the second session Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) will discuss their recent project The Disappearance (CCA, 5–6 April 2013), which took place during the dismantling of a previous exhibition "as a durational event unfolding over two days including a continuous series of manifestations". Rujoiu and Mey will be joined by participating artist Shubigi Rao to discuss her project Visual Snow (2014), presented during The Disappearance as an ongoing part of her biographical study of "the reclusive S. Raoul".

Within the context of Curating Lab 2014, "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?" will be treated as an occasion to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. It will count on the engagement of Curatorial-Intensive participants who will be live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising an approach to documenting and reporting the day for those not physically present. 

The Symposium will be moderated by artist, curator and writer Heman Chong and Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna).


Registration

Free admission with registration. To register, please email museum@nus.edu.sg or call 6516 8817.