Octrober 3, 11 AM – 5 PM, October 4 11 AM – 3:30 PM
The 1st Curatorial Symposium will focus on extending territories of curatorial and artistic practices as well as changing conditions of curatorial profession. The
The symposium will open up a conversation about the transforming modes and formats of curatorial practice that are dictated by the duality of contemporary political and social processes. In one respect the development of new technologies, professional mobility, and change in the understanding of artistic production expands the possibilities of curating. On the other hand, growing political tension, raising control and censorship in different geographies are setting up new and dangerous limitations on freedom of artistic and curatorial expression. During the Symposium we will discuss the potentiality of contemporary curating to resist the shrinking autonomy and the impact of the challenges of our times on contemporary art and cultural processes.
The Pavilion will also serve as a venue for the retrospective exhibition of the TOK curators. The exhibition, which reflects upon the collective’s practice of 10 years, addresses the theme of curating in turbulent times and juxtaposes TOK’s projects and developments with social and political changes in Russia and internationally. Documentation of TOK’s projects, publications, video archival materials, objects and artifacts will be organized together to present a scope of TOK’s projects — exhibitions, conferences, talks, residencies, research — that have been conducted in public spaces and educational institutions and presented in art galleries in St Petersburg and beyond over the past decade. A talk Curatorial Turns from Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives by curator of Museum Arnhem Mirjam Westen (The Netherlands) will accompany the exhbition.
Admission is free, places are limited. Registrattion will be open later.
Symposium speakers
Bassam El Baroni is assistant professor in curating and mediating art at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland and former lecturer (2013 — 2019) at the Dutch Art Institute MA Programme, ArtEZ University of the Arts, Arnhem, the Netherlands. He was director of Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF) 2005 — 2012 a now closed non-profit art space in Alexandria, Egypt. He has curated or co-curated projects/exhibitions such as Manifesta 8 (Murcia, 2010); LIAF — Lofoten International Art Festival (Lofoten Islands, Norway, 2013); Eva International — Ireland’s Biennial (Limerick, 2014); HOME WORKS 7 (Beirut, 2015).
Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits are TOK curators, co-founders of Creative Association of Curators TOK, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. TOK is curatorial collective co-founded in 2010 by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits as a platform for interdisciplinary research-based projects in the field of contemporary art. Throughout their practice TOK curators challenge the borders of the territory of art and seek ways of how it can foster social change. Most projects of the collective are multilayered and long-term initiatives aimed at generating new knowledge about the causes and consequences of changing political and social realities and often lie between historical analysis and the political imaginary. TOK’s projects deal with current issues that are widely discussed both in Russia and internationally such as migration, public space and citizens, development of education, deprivation of social resources, forming collective memory, human rights, feminism, the growing role of the media in the global society, changing political climate and many others. Curators of TOK organize educational events, international conferences and summer schools, programs that aim at the international exchange between artists, curators, designers and educators from Russia and other countries. TOK has a strong publication component and publishes books, brochures, exhibitions catalogues that are available in print and online.
Galit Eilat is an interdependent curator and writer based in Amsterdam. Since 2018 she is the director of Meduza Foundation. Her projects seek to develop conditions that enable collective encounters and experiences, underpinned by a critical view towards the status quo. Deploying eclectic, site-specific projects, often in collaboration with grass root, politically active groups and individuals. In 2001, she founded the Israeli Center for Digital Art, where she served as director for ten years. In 2004, Eilat co-founded Maarav, an online arts and culture magazine and in 2007 she founded the Mobile Archive. In addition to her curatorial activities, she also engages in teaching and writing extensively about art and politics. is the recipient of the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College,
Snejana Krasteva is a сurator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. From 2007 to 2009, she worked at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. From 2011 to 2013, she was a curator at Art on the Underground, London, where she realized a series of public art projects. Her exhibition projects at Garage include The Coming World: Ecology as the New Politics
Paul O’Neill is a curator, artist, writer and educator. He is the Artistic Director of PUBLICS, a position he took up in September 2017. PUBLICS is a curatorial agency and event space with a dedicated library, and reading room in Vallila Helsinki. Between
Maria Semenenko is a co-founder and curator of House of culture Delai Sam/a, an independent cultural space based in Moscow for activists, artists, researchers, designers, architects, musicians, documentary filmmakers, theatre directors and experts. It is a hub for everyone who, by their actions, is exploring, developing, changing or seeking to improve urban life. She is also a program curator of the international activist documentary film festival Delai Film. Before that, she worked on several art projects in public spaces in Moscow and Kiev aimed at involving local people into urban development processes and community building. She was researching migration in Moscow while studying at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow. Before that, she studied political science.
Joanna Sokolowska is a curator at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Poland. Her interests include contemporary art that resonates with feminist practices, and the transformation of the ecological and economic imagination. Selected exhibitions: Pangea United, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, 2019; For Beyond that Horizon Lies Another Horizon, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, 2017; Exercises in Autonomy: Tamás Kaszás featuring Anikó Loránt (ex-artists’ collective), Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, 2016; All Men Become Sisters, Muzeum Sztuki, 2015/16; Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin. Facts, Incidents, Accidents, Circumstances, Situations (co-curated with Magdalena Ziółkowska, Muzeum Sztuki, 2013), Workers Leaving the Workplace, Muzeum Sztuki, 2011; Another City, Another Life (co-curated with Benjamin Cope), Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw, 2008. She is author of essays and articles on politics of contemporary art and recently edited the book All Men Become Sisters copublished with Sternberg Press focusing on feminist perspectives on work, social reproduction in art since the 1970s until today.
About the Curatorial Forum
The North-Western Branch of NCCA in partnership with the Creative Association of Curators TOK initiates the 1st Curatorial Forum. This Forum aims to develop and strengthen a professional dialogue, create new possibilities for the international partnership, mobilize local and regional creative forces as well as widen audiences for contemporary art.
Organisers
The North-West branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) as part of ROSIZO was opened in 1995, becoming the first of eight regional branches. NCCA priorities include:- Artistic and cultural projects contributed to the dialogue between contemporary art and the cultural landscape of St. Petersburg; art in public spaces, site-specific projects; international projects.
- Integration of St. Petersburg and Russian contemporary art into international art process.
- Projects representing foreign actual art in St. Petersburg and Russia and Russian art abroad;
- Educational activities in the field of contemporary art: lectures, seminars, master classes of Russian and foreign artists, curators and art historians.
The North-West branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art within the ROSIZO has a residence for artists in Kronstadt.
TOK is curatorial collective co-founded in 2010 by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits as a platform for interdisciplinary research-based projects in the field of contemporary art. Throughout their practice TOK curators challenge the borders of the territory of art and seek ways of how it can foster social change. Most projects of the collective are multilayered and long-term initiatives aimed at generating new knowledge about the causes and consequences of changing political and social realities and often lie between historical analysis and the political imaginary. TOK’s projects deal with current issues that are widely discussed both in Russia and internationally such as migration, public space and citizens, development of education, deprivation of social resources, forming collective memory, human rights, feminism, the growing role of the media in the global society, changing political climate and many others. Curators of TOK organize educational events, international conferences and summer schools, programs that aim at the international exchange between artists, curators, designers and educators from Russia and other countries. TOK has a strong publication component and publishes books, brochures, exhibitions catalogues that are available in print and online.
