Dear List
in relation to the theme of the month about curating education and the
role of documentation I wanted to tell you a little about the curating
degree zero archive a project which I have been developing with
Dorothee Richter since the beginning of 2003. It is a live, growing
archive of material aboput critical and experimental approaches to
curating, that could be seen as a direct answer to Beryl's question
about how curators are documenting their process and sharing their
knowledge with future generations.
The concept we have chosen for the archive, rather bizarrely some
think, is the touring exhibition. The collection of over 900
publications, websites, audio cds, cd roms, dvds and videos has been on
the road since its conception and we install it into gallery and
project spaces as it travels, normally with the help of an artist,
group of artists or designer who 'reinterpret' the display at each
site. We have been touring to venues in Switzerland, Austria and
Germany and we are now on our way through England, with the support of
the arts council. It is normally at each venue for around a month and
we always try to accompany the exhibition with discussion events on the
issues addressed by participants in the archive.
In fact, in Sunderland, with the archive on display at the Northern
Gallery of Contemporary Art, we will be holding a discussion entitled
'curating can be learnt, but can it be taught?' on the 19th April.
Amongst the international speakers we have invited Liliane Schneiter,
who co-directs the CCC (curatorial, critical, cybermedia) study
program in Geneva, she has been developing a site with her students
http://www.cyberaxe.org/ , and she will be talking about this as an
alternative space for the students to curate, produce work and engage
in critical discussion.
What is perhaps interesting for the list is that the archive bundles
together documentation about the practices of new-media curators,
freelance curators, artist curators and collaborative groups who
curate. In doing so the tendency is for people to observe the critical
and experimental strategies that new-media curators share with other
kinds of curators, rather than seeing the question of media as one of
separation.
Dorothee and I would be interested to hear from list members what they
think of this approach, if any of you would like to attend the
discussion, and of course any comments or recommendations about the
archive project as a whole, from the viewpoint of a new-media curator.
The archive is online at www.curatingdegreezero.org
warmest regards
Barnaby Drabble
Barnaby Drabble
Culmannstr. 22
Ch-8006
Zürich
Switzerland
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www.curatingdegreezero.org
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