Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency - Clew: A Rich and Rewarding DIsorientation
(2024)
author(s): Lauren O'Neal
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
This exposition examines the curatorial project "Clew: A Rich and Rewarding Disorientation," held at the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy in 2017. The project is part of my doctoral research on “Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency.” “Clew” proposes a framework for curatorial dramaturgy and asks: What is the potential of a dramaturgical approach within an open-ended exhibition structure? Who, or what, is the curatorial dramaturg? How do materials and time contribute to unfolding exhibition narratives?
[This exposition corresponds to Section Six: Extending Lines in All Directions: Curatorial Dramaturgy in the printed dissertation.]
Observations of: The Observation of Perception, considered through Drawing
(2023)
author(s): Mike Croft
published in: Research Catalogue
The exposition provides some indication of the content of an exhibition at Lugar do Desenho – Júlio Resende Foundation between 23 September and 28 October, 2023. Several artistic research projects have been explored by the author through drawing and writing between 2021 and 2023 while resident in Porto, Portugal. The projects have each been hosted by i2ADS (Institute of Art and Design Society) as part of a larger collaborative research project called 'The Observation of Perception', considered through Drawing. Two of the projects, or one project divided into two parts, are specifically a contribution to a genetic ancestry project – ‘Call for drawing – Genetics and Identity’ – hosted by i3S (Institute of Investigation and Innovation of Health), Porto University. The main formatting of all of the projects has been the Research Catalogue, in which the visual works that now comprise the exhibition have previously been placed in a multiple media context as artistic research.
Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency - Open House: A Portrait of Collecting
(2023)
author(s): Lauren O'Neal
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
“Open House: A Portrait of Collecting,” a curatorial project held at the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy in 2015, is part of my doctoral research on “Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency.” The "Open House" exhibition was initially about collecting and caring for objects, a traditional function of museums. Curating with a choreographic mindset encouraged me to address other questions, including how objects and collections foster emotional connections. My initial question for the project, “How to do things with objects?” soon became “How do objects arrange spaces of relation between people and ideas?” Themes include community, memory, identity, taxonomy, preservation, accumulation, value, story, exchange, and display.
[This exposition corresponds to Section Five: Arranging Spaces of Relation(s): What Can Objects Do? in the printed dissertation.]
Curating as graphic design research
(2022)
author(s): Sara De Bondt
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
In 2019, I curated and designed Off the Grid, an exhibition on post-war Belgian graphic design at Design Museum Gent. The show included public events (Design Museum Gent, 2019–20) and led to a publication (De Bondt, 2022), all of which have been elements of my practice-based doctoral research at KASK School of Arts and Ghent University.
Curating Off the Grid allowed me to define my own research area, namely the investigation of graphic design from a specific country and period. The process also raised broader questions around naming, authorship, and canon-formation, which in turn have enriched my practice as a designer and educator. The curatorial thus became a methodology that allowed me to bring the two sides — my historical research and my graphic design practice — together. In this article, I discuss my engagement with graphic design via the curatorial, and how the latter can be deployed for practice-based graphic design research in and beyond exhibition spaces.
Love of God - Group Exhibition: A Retrospective Virtual Gallery
(2022)
author(s): Jeffrey Cobbold
published in: Research Catalogue
Love of God - Group Exhibition
Curated by Jeffrey Cobbold
September 14 - October 19, 2019
Artworks Trenton, Trenton, New Jersey (U.S.A)
2019 Curatorial Statement:
“…I will find you. I will always find you……A loving heart is the truest wisdom……To believe and be satisfied with just the way things are……No one has ever seen God……Jesus……Love is a circle……And what comes around goes around…”
The words above come from Love of God (L.O.G) Audio Quotation Database, a DIY online database and digital humanities project I started in 2015 when I was working as an intern within the Love of God Retreat Program in Lawrenceville, NJ. In order to create the database I asked the program’s high school student participants to find quotes about love and God that would help them reflect on the meaning of these words within their retreat program. These quotes are now the heart and inspiration for Love of God – Group Exhibition, which presents works from a selection of artists exploring issues of love and God revealed through artistic practice.
The artists featured in this volume are:
Jessica Browne-White (sculpture)
Jeffrey Cobbold (sound, video, text)
Devonte Roach (film)
Marina de Bernado Sanchis (drawing)
Together they create multiple entry points for one to consider the character of love, God and the intersections of both in our ever changing world.
Love of God – Group Exhibition takes on the spirit of the Love of God Retreat Program in Lawrenceville, NJ with its necessity for inclusive understandings about love and God. While Jesus was a central topic of discussion within the retreat program, there was no mandated opinion one was expected to have about him. Rather, the unifying aspect of this program was an affinity for music and the arts within the expression of community. Their community was intersectional, dealing with the differences of varied socio-economic statuses, sexual identities and divergent relationships with the organized Christian church amongst so many other forms of diversity.
The retreat program no longer exists as it did in 2015 due the disbursement of its high school participants and changes in adult leadership. The online database is now a relic of the digital humanities project that occurred at that time. Yet, this exhibition is an initial step toward sharing a glimpse of the spirit of this retreat program with others. I sincerely hope that the spirit of this exhibition will connect with you as you search for love and God in your personal life and within the communities you serve everyday.
Love of God Community Conversation (Luke 1:5-45)
October 12, 2019
Artworks Trenton, Trenton, New Jersey (U.S.A)
Featured presentation:
"Love, God, and Community" by Simone Oliver
2019 Community Conversation Statement:
This community conversation seeks to provide a space for theological and artistic reflection within the Love of God – Group Exhibition. A team of presenters will offer their individual reflections on love, God and community through engagement with Luke 1:5-45. Presenters will also consider the works of contemporary art and case study materials within the Love of God – Group Exhibition to aide their presentations. A time for discussion will be had between presenters and the audience for better articulation and understanding of divergent pathways toward love, God and community that can be useful for work in Christian ministry and contemporary art & culture.
Like A Rolling Stone
(2022)
author(s): Stephen Edward Bottomley
published in: Research Catalogue
Like a Rolling Stone was an international workshop and exhibition exploring the themes of relocation, transplantation, camouflage, identity and materiality through mixed media art jewellery. Geology and geophysics were examined as an analogy for the theme of population displacement.
In 2016 the Italian Cultural Institute (ICI) approached the department of Jewellery and Silversmithing, Edinburgh College of Art /The University of Edinburgh with a view to organising a series of events focusing on and celebrating gemmology and contemporary jewellery.
Stephen Bottomley + Susan Cross invited three Italian Jewellery artists: Maria Rosa Franzin, Gigi Mariani and Gabi Viet alongside seven UK based artists, Jessamy Kelly, Rhona McCallum, Jo Pudelko, Jessica Turrell and Cristina Zani, to undertake field work in North Berwick, an area frequently visited by the Geologist James Hutton, as a backdrop to the political themes surrounding population displacement.
Over the year following the Edinburgh workshop the project was developed in the artists home countries and exhibited in Munich and Edinburgh over 2018 with support from the School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University.
The exhibition is intended to tour later in 2021.
FERROcity: Iron in the city
(2022)
author(s): Stephen Edward Bottomley
published in: Research Catalogue
Jewellery and objects by twenty-two contemporary makers displayed alongside gemmological samples and photography that explores the interpretation and influence of Iron as catalyst, material and fundamental element of life. The exhibition was co-curated by Professor Stephen Bottomley, Head of School and Elizabeth Turrell visiting Professor at School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University.
This 2019 international touring exhibition brought together fascinating artistic responses to the theme of iron by twenty-two contemporary makers, including works by academic staff from Birmingham’s eminent School of Jewellery and invited international artists.
It explored iron is a material that has become synonymous with human life and civilisation and as such has become embedded in both our language and understanding of the world
FERROcity showcased a breadth of approaches to this fascinating but familiar material. Ideas explore the interpretation and influence of Iron as catalyst, material, and fundamental element of life, culminating in contemporary metalwork and jewellery ranging from steel vessels to recycled iron nail jewellery. Alongside this gemmological samples and photography taken on specialist microscopes was commissioned from the Gemmology department at the School of Jewellery which captured the transformative effect iron has on the colouration of gemstones.
The show opened in Germany at the Museum Reich der Kristalle, Mineralogical State Collection, Munich and ran in tandem with the city’s international jewellery fair ‘Inhorgenta’ in February 2019 and ‘International Jewellery Week’ and ‘Schmuck’ exhibitions over February and March 2019. The exhibition then moved to the Vittoria Street Gallery, Birmingham, United Kingdom, April 2019 and was invited to China as a special exhibition at the 4th International Art Jewellery Exhibition at the Beijing Institute of Fashion and Textiles October 2019 before moving to the Academy of International Visual Arts, Shanghai November 2019 until it closed in December 2019.
Exhibitors
School of Jewellery:
Dauvit Alexander, Jivan Astfalck, Stephen Bottomley, Jeremy Hobbins, Bridie Lander, Anna Lorenz,
Sarah O’Hana, Drew Markou, Toni Mayner, Jo Pond, Rebecca Steiner, Elizabeth Turrell.
Invited artists:
Marianne Anderson, Tim Carson, Rachael Colley, Bettina Dittlmann, Christine Graf, Kirsten Haydon, Michael Jank, Joohee Han, Simone Nolden Jo Pudelko.
Exhibition Dates:
Germany, Munich | 21st February to 17th March 2019
United Kingdom, Birmingham| 1st April to 18th April 2019
China, Beijing |18th October to 28th October 2019
China, Shanghai| 31st October to 30th November 2019
Moving through Choreography – Curating Choreography as an Artistic Practice
(2021)
author(s): Marie Fahlin
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
The purpose of the artistic research, Moving through Choreography – Curating Choreography as an Artistic Practice, has been to consider choreography and curating in their similarities and differences. Thus, at different phases of the working process, choreography and curating were treated as one and the same artistic practice; while, in other moments, as practices that are distinct from each other.
Curating has been implemented as a ‘taking care’ principle and a relational activity impacting the production, presentation and documentation of choreography. Choreography has undergone a process of self-reincarnations, or rather, of trans-carnations, whereby the entire body of work has been scrutinized and altered. Key figure/body/agent of these trans-carnations has been the horse, or rather, the assemblage of human and horse, women and horses, here called ‘Centauring.’
Curating and choreography have been integrated to a scrutiny of the art of riding, specifically, the choreography of dressage. In dressage, the research has identified the rigor needed by the research to both steer and unleash the working process.
The research has been pursued by purely artistic means, within a circumscribed field. Different perspectives and the making use of ramifications and loose ends, has proliferated into a plethora of intra-related works, objects and choreographies within which research result and artistic result coincide. The research har proceeded in consecutive phases. Each phase has developed its own specific artistic methodologies.
The overarching methodology has provided for a clear navigation of undetermined directions and dramaturgies. The concept of ‘One’ has produced and collected both core outcomes and residual manifestations. The exhibitions and the exhibitor have carried, pursued and embodied the works and otherwise choreographies, throughout the research process.
Format Exhibition - Schallwirkungen auf Mensch und Tier
(2018)
author(s): ingrid cogne, Tobias Pilz
published in: Research Catalogue
In early 2015, the art-based research project Six Formats gathered a group of artists, curators, and researchers 1) to co-think about an Exhibition as well as 2) to articulate this particular format of communication as knowledge. In Six Formats, formats of communication are the central knowledge. Format, content, and context are in relations. The format Exhibition was placed at Kunsthalle Exnergasse. In order to be in line with the aim of KEX to serve artists, the research process was intended to work with the exhibition space. The research group decided to improve the acoustic qualities of the room - for talks, screenings, and performances - and to intervene in the space without interfering with an artist’s needs. This decision led to reflections on visibility and subtleness.
Six Formats investigated “exposition” - proposed by Research Catalogue - as a format of communication. For Cogne and Pilz, the format exposition could be explored as “one” space (one room, one poster, one painting). Six Formats invites the visitor/reader to circulate between fiction and reality and to let their activated thoughts navigate without searching for any truth.
The exposition 'Format Exhibition - Schallwirkungen auf Mensch und Tier' proposes a double entry.
The visitor can visit it as they would enter the physical space of the Exhibition Schallwirkungen auf Mensch und Tier at KEX: 1) little by little, randomly, maybe not noticing all the elements placed in the exhibition space; 2) glancing through the space or directly diving into the reading of the exhibition booklet that the research group treated as a fictional space. The visitor can also directly access the process the group had - written in black on a white background. They will meet a quite linear writing that Cogne and Pilz exposed in a nonlinear way.
Six Formats (FWF, PEEK, AR291-G21) takes every opportunity to challenge formats of communication and explore ways in which art-based-related knowledge can be presented and articulated as well as activating and circulating.
Voyager's Record
(2018)
author(s): Paulina Brelińska
published in: Research Catalogue
Point of departure.
The exhibition "The Voyager's Record" refers to traveling as such a form of mobility, which results from the
internal need to see inaccessible, undiscovered, lost and mysterious places. Its title refers to the name of two
gold-plated disks - The Voyager Golden Record - which was placed in the 1970s on board of spacecraft
launched as part of the Voyager program. There were some specific recordings and photographs on these disks
that were supposed to show the life cycle of the human species on Earth to the extraterrestrial viewers. The
exhibition showing the latest works created by young artists figuratively refers to the untamed dreams of seeing
unknown lands and what is more the cosmos. Artists’ projects pay attention to the images and elements of
nature that interest them during their “expeditions” (expedition is translated as “mobility organized for a specific
purpose”). Such concept situates the artist in the position of a researcher/explorer who archives/documents
reality and nature for a specific purpose. These objects are deprived of the features of the “artifact” (translated as
“incorrect element of the scientific research result”). On the contrary, they become a specific scientific record
depicting life on Earth.
During the nineteenth century, when the ideological trend called romanticism was developing, the author of the
book “COSMOS. Alexander Humboldt's physical description of the world” noticed that nature is a constant
object of the discoverer's fascination. When observing the works of contemporary artists, the aforementioned
glorification of nature seems to be still super important. Humboldt wrote: "Children's joy at the sight of the
particular figures of the countries and the closed seas, as geographical cards show us; the desire to see the
constellations of the southern sky that are not on our firmament; images of palm and Lebanon cedars in the holy
scriptures; they are all things as an example cited, and which are capable of awakening in the young soul
unreasonable desire to see distant lands.”
1
The exhibition is a story about spiritual travels, as well as about feelings that accompany the search for one's
own nature. Staying in a state of suspension, properly distant from reality, very credible memorabilia arise -
telling a lot about the Earth itself. However, it is not so much its scientific portrait that is important but the
presentation of our planet from the perspective of the internal experiences of its inhabitants.
Paulina Brelińska
This exhibition is an island
(2017)
author(s): Kit Hammonds
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
Based around my catalogue essay for Yu-Chen Wang's exhibition 'Nostalgia for the Future' (Taipei Fine Art Museum and Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester, 2016), I consider how exhibition narratives are formed. As an experiment in 'curatorial writing', the essay draws from the evolution of science fiction. The method is discussed as reflective rather than explanatory of the artist's practice.
Material in the artistic process
(2017)
author(s): Michael Kargl
published in: University of Applied Arts Vienna
The materials used in a work of art are not necessarily determined from the start. The contemporary artistic work process involves a great deal of experimenting in order to arrive at the most suitable material to realize an idea. In this test phase one also risks altering the complete work, its parameters, characteristics, and not least its final appearance. This process of material-based transformation has a two-fold effect: first, on the artwork itself (its haptic conditions), and then on its perception, which in turn influences the specific form of aesthetic recognition actuated by the artwork.
RUUKKU Journal: Lectio Praecursoria: Choreographic Thinking in Curatorial Practice
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Lauren O'Neal
This exposition is in review and its share status is: visible to all.
RUUKKU Journal: Lectio Praecursoria: Choreographic Thinking in Curatorial Practice
Lauren O’Neal presented this lectio praecursoria at the University of the Arts Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland, on 26.5.2023, as part of the public doctoral thesis defense for her project "Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency." Custos: Dr. Mika Elo, University of the Arts Helsinki. Examiner: Dr. Adesola Akinleye, Texas Women’s University.
The dissertation project (including the publication and expositions): https://taju.uniarts.fi/handle/10024/7780.
Crit 2020
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Jeremi Biziuk, Ain Nurul Ain Binti Nor Halim
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Critical assignment documentation and exhibition for the group of Kaiming Li, Klara Fantova, Ain Nor Halim and Jeremi Biziuk.
Intertwined - What does it mean to be a creative person of faith?
(last edited: 2019)
author(s): Joshua Hale, Kelly J. Arbeau
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
From the most religious to the most secular, no artist ever knows exactly where their creative process is leading—but we all seem to have faith that we will get there. Many factors underlying creativity are also crucial to the act of having faith. These shared factors include ambiguity tolerance, openness to mystery, engaging with paradoxical thinking, perseverance, and questioning. Additionally, those who practice each (creativity, faith) share many guiding phrases, such as “take it one step at a time,” “go with your heart,” and “trust the process.” This interdisciplinary arts-based research project explores the experience of being a self-identified creative who practices a faith or religion. The exhibition combines methods from arts-based research, human centered design, and phenomenology to describe the intersections between the creative practices and faith perspectives of 15 individuals. The experience of our participants is that of creativity and faith combining—intertwining—to form an interactional, hybrid experience that is profoundly different from each experience on its own.
Six Formats
(last edited: 2018)
author(s): ingrid cogne, Tobias Pilz
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The arts-based research project Six Formats (February 2015 - June 2018) analysed various formats commonly used in relation to arts-based knowledge articulation and/or communication in the present day: publication, exhibition, symposium, lecture-performance, screening, and workshop. Six Formats created situations of dialogue in, on, and between each of its formats. Six Formats facilitated co-processes of ongoing self-reflection and re-articulation aiming for reciprocal attentiveness to the respective needs of the project, its partners, and co-researchers. Six Formats was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, PEEK, AR291-G21) and hosted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
This exposition examines the curatorial project "Clew: A Rich and Rewarding Disorientation," held at the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy in 2017. The project is part of my doctoral research on “Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency.” “Clew” proposes a framework for curatorial dramaturgy and asks: What is the potential of a dramaturgical approach within an open-ended exhibition structure? Who, or what, is the curatorial dramaturg? How do materials and time contribute to unfolding exhibition narratives? [This exposition corresponds to Section Six: Extending Lines in All Directions: Curatorial Dramaturgy in the printed dissertation.]open exposition comments (0)
Based around my catalogue essay for Yu-Chen Wang's exhibition 'Nostalgia for the Future' (Taipei Fine Art Museum and Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester, 2016), I consider how exhibition narratives are formed. As an experiment in 'curatorial writing', the essay draws from the evolution of science fiction. The method is discussed as reflective rather than explanatory of the artist's practice.open exposition comments (0)
RUUKKU Journal: Lectio Praecursoria: Choreographic Thinking in Curatorial Practice Lauren O’Neal presented this lectio praecursoria at the University of the Arts Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland, on 26.5.2023, as part of the public doctoral thesis defense for her project "Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency." Custos: Dr. Mika Elo, University of the Arts Helsinki. Examiner: Dr. Adesola Akinleye, Texas Women’s University. The dissertation project (including the publication and expositions): https://taju.uniarts.fi/handle/10024/7780.open exposition comments (0)
The arts-based research project Six Formats (February 2015 - June 2018) analysed various formats commonly used in relation to arts-based knowledge articulation and/or communication in the present day: publication, exhibition, symposium, lecture-performance, screening, and workshop. Six Formats created situations of dialogue in, on, and between each of its formats. Six Formats facilitated co-processes of ongoing self-reflection and re-articulation aiming for reciprocal attentiveness to the respective needs of the project, its partners, and co-researchers. Six Formats was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, PEEK, AR291-G21) and hosted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.open exposition comments (0)