Alternative content
© Rosemary Donegan, 2005. Used by permission
Download transcripts of this talk:
Developing a discourse of curatorial practices
by Rosemary Donegan
Date: 02 December 2005
Event: Toronto
Rosemary Donegan
Rosemary Donegan is an independent curator and writer whose curatorial works has focused on the image and history of industry, work and labour in Canada, and Canadian urban history and planning particularly in relation to artists communities. She has curated exhibitions and written catalogues for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; the Sudbury Art Gallery; the Windsor Art Gallery; the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina; and the Hamilton Art Gallery. The catalolgue essay "Sudbury: The Industrial Landscape" was awarded the Inco Curatorial Writing Award, OAAG, 1999 and her book Spadina Avenue received the Canadian Historical Association Regional History Award in 1987 and was nominated for the Toronto Book Awards, 1987. Her articles have been published in, Canadian Art, C Magazine, Fuse, Prefix, Parallelogram, Public, Canadian Forum, Fireweed, Labour/Le Travail, and Archivaria.
Rosemary Donegan is an associate professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design, and is an Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Liberal Studies, as well as Chair of the Criticism & Curatorial Studies Program in the Faculty of Art.
Abstract
Over the last 25 years the curator, particularly the contemporary independent curator, has become a figure in the public imagination. Yet, the actual work that curators undertake, the diverse practical skills and intellectual aptitudes necessary to undertake critical curatorial work remains unexamined. It is also significant that, although there has been a dramatic increase in publications on curatorial issues focusing on the problematic construction of the art world and the public museum, there is little discussion of either "curatorial methodologies" or proposals for engaged curatorial practices.
My presentation will address some of these questions which have grown out of my endeavours as a curator and educator to develop a discourse and educational program/curriculum appropriate to the multiplicity of curatorial and critical practices. This will be undertaken by providing a historical framework of curatorial activities in Canada while elaborating on some of the methodologies that frame contemporary curatorial work within a visual arts practice.