Curatorial Strategy as Critical Intervention
Thursday 25 November, 2004: 10.15am - 6.30pm

A one-day symposium at the School of Fine Art, Kent Institute of Art and
Design, New Dover Road, Canterbury.

£30/£15 concessions (includes lunch and evening reception)

Increasingly, the role of both the curator and the exhibition are being
questioned regarding issues of display, definition, reception, selection and
interpretation of art and how these relate to wider understandings of
contemporary art and its contribution to art history and theory.  This
one-day symposium will address how approaches to curatorship can create and
develop new paradigms and awarenesses of art, drawing together speakers from
different backgrounds who have curated exhibitions in a variety of media:
from painting to video to text, to photography and digital media; and in a
variety of exhibition contexts: from the gallery, to the 'virtual', to the
site-specific.  
Speakers: 
Liz Wells, curator of Facing East: Contemporary Landscape Photography from
Baltic Areas and editor of and The Photography Reader will discuss issues of
representation, landscape photography and identity in the context of
shifting relations in North-East Europe.
Chris Dorsett's curated projects include Divers' Memories, Oxford and
Resurrection Shuffle, Hong Kong. He will discuss issues of dissemination of
botanical knowledge at Kew Gardens and the rainforests of Brazil with regard
to the exhibition, Trees Walking.
Geoff Cox, curator of Generator (Spacex Gallery) and The Museum of Ordure,
will discuss issues of conceptual art and immateriality in the context of
computer-generated artworks and their spaces of exhibition.
Cate Elwes, curator of experimental video will discuss how the exhibition
and display of video art has evolved over the last 40 years from its
counter-cultural impetus to the default medium of the contemporary gallery
scene.
Martin Clark, nominated for the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi Curatorial Prize in
2003, will examine how the dialogical relationships which surround the work
of art are mediated by the group show, particularly in relation to the
'University Gallery' as a privileged  site for a critical curatorial
activity.
Raimi Gbadamosi, co-curator of Homeland, will discuss how his project, The
Republic interrogates the limits of language, colour and race to provide a
space for self-definition limited only to the boundaries of personal
imagination.
Alun Rowlands, curator of  Fear It and Do It Anyway, London, will draw on
The Movement Began With A Scandal, an exhibition he curated at the
Lenbachhaus Museum, Munich, which examined the nature of institutional
critique within the context of the museum.
Becky Shaw is an artist whose work explores the nature of social
relationships in work and leisure contexts. She and Daniel Hinchcliffe, Head
of Visual Arts at the University of Bath will discuss Becky's recent
site-specific work, Reception at the University's Department of Social and
Policy Sciences.

To book: email [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> or post to Julie
Ross, Research Office, Kent Institute of Art and Design, Fort Pitt,
Rochester, ME1 1DZ. Tel 01634 888647