CuratorsinContext.ca

The Generative Curatorial Gesture

by Alissa Firth-Eagland

Date: 16 July 2005
Event: Banff

Abstract

My major interest is in curating as a creative act in itself. Much like an artist uses their medium to reveal our world, I use the exhibition as a pedagogical tool to teach, to learn, and to inspire the new: new perspectives, new ways of understanding and new ways of seeing. It is my goal to create a productive environment for artists, to inspire dialogue between audiences, and to cultivate knowledge about our world. I have experimented with inserting myself into this process, and found generative curatorial gestures can result from an active approach.

In these early stages of developing a language for my practice, the significance of my collaborative working relationships with artists has become clear. I have worked closely with artists on recent projects, applying curatorial direction with consideration and in varying degrees, depending on the venue, the project, the timeline, and the individuals involved.

In March 2005, I curated Feats, might., an evening of live performances, for Fado Performance Inc. and The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Using a commission approach, I chose video artists who use their own presence and persona in their video practice, and asked them to perform 'unplugged' in front of a live audience for the first time. They developed new performances specific to the space used - The Great Hall in Toronto. This commission was designed to create additional resources for Feats, might. artists by supporting both the production and exhibition of a work, and to create opportunity for each of them delve into new trajectories.

Working within this framework also allowed for creative involvement on my part. Rather than exercising heavy-handed creative guidance, I advocated for alternative positions that the artist may or may not have envisioned. During our studio visits, I negotiated with them about many aspects of their work and the form it would take as an 'unplugged' video. I challenged each of them with questions ranging from specific to hypothetical, eliciting responses and new considerations about the media of both performance and video.

I see the exhibition as a workshopping environment, so in addition to challenging artists to reconsider medium, I often ask participating artists to analyze site and space by producing projects for unique venues. Most recently, I curated Sound Madness 1 & 2, as part of my role as Curatorial Work Study at the Walter Phillips Gallery. These public programs were conceived by Senior Curator Sylvie Gilbert as a way to encourage artists in the Sound + Vision Creative Residencies program to explore the overlap between audio and visual elements in their art practice in a public forum.

For Sound Madness 1 & 2, I asked artists to develop aural environments and live performances for these single evening events. I worked with artists to scout locations that inspired audio experimentation and mounted these projects in satellite locations throughout The Banff Centre. Several collaborative, site-specific sound performances unfolded out of my discussions with the artists as I encouraged them to work in these unusual modes and venues. The audience witnessed an array works that responded to site with sound.

I consider curating as a form of practice-based research; I learn from the experience of organizing a form for content, working with artists and organizations, and negotiating ideas about art. Through this practice-based research, I have found that a pedagogical dimension of an exhibition of contemporary art can reside in its forms and curatorial methodologies. An exhibition can both unravel and contextualize our world, much the same as finding the right word to illustrate a complex idea in a sentence. My curatorial strategies - commission, discussion, the solicitation of cross-discipline work and the fostering of innovative methodologies - have come from a drive to both learn and teach within the medium of contemporary art exhibition. I view the exhibition as a learning experience: for the audience, the institution, the artists, and the curator. For those involved, an exhibition is a lens through which ideas can flow, become focused, magnified and be projected into the world.