SixtyEight Art Institute welcomes applications by curators, artists, researchers and other practitioners to take part in our annual free and intensive program. Using the Nordic notion of a ‘thing’ – an old concept for a meeting place, an assembly of the community, or what can be defined as the precursor of the modern term ‘parliament’ – we invite you to join us for a series of workshops and lectures held by leading intellectual figures operating in, and out of, the Nordic Region. This year’s edition of The Curatorial Thing will build on SixtyEight’s ongoing exhibition programme, Memoirs of Saturn, which envisions potentials for prosperity in a warming world.
We are looking to assemble 15 to 20 participants, who will join us in our day workshops and evening lectures.
The full programme will take place from 1-8 October 2022 in Copenhagen.
Application deadline for your submission: 15 May 2022.
Further information about applying to this intensive knowledge programme can be found below.
THEMATIC FRAME: AUDACIOUS LANDSCAPES
We have chosen the title AUDACIOUS LANDSCAPES, from a 1938 poem by Muriel Rukeyser on witnessing an industrial landscape with “clouds over every town” that “indicate the stored destruction” foreshadowing our own time. As this carbon buildup has led to global climate crises, curatorial practice has become a form of witness, too. In developing The Curatorial Thing, we read “audacious” as a paradox of both capitalist hubris and the risk of imagining better possible afterlives; we consider “landscape” beyond framed artworks in museums, as art objects take on new roles in the public sphere.
Our twofold goal is to move participants’ thinking from art histories of grief to imaginative proto-histories of thriving in profoundly changed ecosystems and to move critical inquiry from a modernising to an ecologising mindset. We aim to find a triad of art histories, climate narratives, and innovative spatial-natural theories that can enable a new climate art history. Therefore, the workshops and keynote lectures of this meeting will not only focus on the aftermath of climate-related art histories to aid us in thinking forward, but will also explore climate grief as a moving bio-physical space to seed new and active imaginations. To this end, we want to investigate how art can inspire larger-scale solutions for a warming world and at the same time find the historical lineages that can give us both the hermeneutic and contemporary tools to sustain critical spaces that can support these new imaginations. An additional consideration will be changing perspectives on the image, which has long been interrogated in postmodernist frameworks but demands more urgent, material considerations in the age of ecological emergencies.
The Curatorial Thing will take place 1 – 8 October 2022, with workshops and lectures led by invited culture, science, and technology professionals. Our open call welcomes applications from recently established to mid-career curators, artists, and other academic or culture professionals. Selected participants will have the opportunity to share their work as well.
Confirmed keynote speakers for our conference lectures are T.J. Demos, Andri Snær Magnason, Beatriz Colomina, and Diedrich Diederichsen. Additional speakers will be announced by August 2022.
The Curatorial Thing (5th Edition) programme and conference curators are Heidi Hart, Arts and Humanities Research Fellow, and Hugo Hopping, Artist and Head of Board of Advisors, SixtyEight Art Institute.
STRUCTURE & PROGRAM
The Curatorial Thing has two tracks: closed workshops for 15 participants selected from this open call, and an evening program of performances and lectures to which the public is welcome as well.
The workshops are designed exclusively for participants to strengthen their understanding of artistic/curatorial mechanisms and/or research positions responding to the climate crisis and the need for ameliorative design. The aim is to construct a combined practical and theoretical approach organised through mutual learning platforms, and in the process, expand and exchange a spectrum of entry-points and knowledge between presenters and workshop participants. The evening lectures are open to the public, and feature thinkers or researchers who examine the framework of the theme and its ramifications in conversational or lecture formats and backed by Q & A sessions.
All sessions are about strengthening the institutional and independent dimensions of curatorial and artistic practice, promoting an open network and context for the culture in which these artistic and curatorial practices operate and interact. The overarching goal is to create new, applicable art histories responding to the crises of our time. To this end, our programme offers the public and participants a vibrant and sound framework for debate, exchange, and intellectual retreat.
Previous years’ speakers and workshop leaders have included:
Climate scientist and politician Theresa Scavenius; Rector of the Bergen Academy of Art, Frans Jacobi; London- and Turin-based curator Caterina Avataneo; artists Jens Hanning, Rasmus Nielsen (Superflex), and Catherine Sarah Young; Associate Professor at HEAD-Genève/Geneva School of Art and Design, Gene Ray; Curator and former Visual Arts Coordinator for Matucana 100 in Santiago, Ximena Moreno; Professor of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University, Irit Rogoff; Professor of Art Theory at University of Cologne, Nina Möntmann; Assistant Professor in Curating and Mediating at Aalto University, Bassam El Baroni; Head of Programme, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Jussi Koitela; Theorists and Former Head of the Institute of Art, Writing and Research at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Sidsel Nelund; Reader in Curating, Programme Director, Goldsmiths University, Simon Sheikh; Professor at Malmø Art Academy, Sarat Maharaj; Curator and Artistic Co-Director at Savvy Contemporary, Antonia Alampi, Curator at BAK – Utrecht, Matteo Lucchetti; Artist/Professor/Rector at Malmø Art Academy, Maj Hasager; among others.
This year’s full program will be announced in August 2022 through www.sixtyeight.dk and through our media partners.
HOW TO APPLY & PRACTICAL INFORMATION
SixtyEight Art Institute cannot cover travel costs or accommodation but provides the learning program free of charge for the selected participants. To apply for full participation, including the workshops and evening lectures, send the following to: tct@sixtyeight.dk with subject: “Application by (+ your name).”
▪ Please send us a written statement about your curatorial, artistic, or related professional research interests or goals, including how you see your contribution within the thematic framework of AUDACIOUS LANDSCAPES and why you would benefit from participating in the program (max. 2000 characters including spaces).
▪ Include your CV (stating nationality, age, and contact information).
| ▪ | Please send us a written statement about your curatorial, artistic, or related professional research interests or goals, including how you see your contribution within the thematic framework of AUDACIOUS LANDSCAPES and why you would benefit from participating in the program (max. 2000 characters including spaces). |
| ▪ | Include your CV (stating nationality, age, and contact information). |
DEADLINE: 15 May 2022
Selected participants will be notified by 1 June 2022.
The 5th Edition of The Curatorial Thing is made possible through the generous support of Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.
SixtyEight Art Institute is an artistic/curatorial research organisation looking to uncover, develop, and further exchanges between artists and curators and their creative labour. Currently in our gallery is the exhibit, Ruderal Futures, which is the sixth instalment of our two-year programme of exhibitions, called Memoirs of Saturn, and that is kindly supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Det Obelske Familiefond, and Beckett-Fonden.