Researching curatorial methodologies outside of traditional exhibition contexts

And We Were Able To Breathe is a continuation of my artistic and curatorial research practice, focusing specifically on elements of civic society, socio-political engagement, and the democratisation of art in how it is co-created by artists and curators, and engaged with by audience-communities, as well as sometimes instrumentalised by commissioning authorities.

The research project is intended to work towards a meaningful curatorial methodology which seeks new ways to think through the diverse relationships between curator, artist, artwork, space, audiences and society, and which imagines the role of the curator as more akin to facilitator, observer and bringer-together, rather than exhibition-maker.

As conversations across many societies and channels become more polarised, artistic intervention outside of the exhibition context may have the potential to instill more meaningful and thoughtful conversation into these debates. Through a series of interventions in spaces outside of the traditional exhibition-space, this project will research to what extent (if at all) these conversations can be inspired and influenced by artistic intervention.

In particular, the project intends to investigate how art outside of the traditional exhibition framework can minimise the separation between artist and audience-community, and if this can contribute to an increased engagement not only with the artwork itself, but also with wider social and civil society concerns. By building spaces for conversation, engagement and curiosity around artistic interventions (see methodology further below), the project tries to provide a space to think about and around how civic participation, dialogical political expression and community healing can be fostered through experiencing art outside of a conventional exhibition space.

Experiences of observing audiences and reviewing comments around artistic interventions have led me to think deeply about this apparent distance between art and the community with which the artist attempts to communicate. As I watched Keit Bonnici’s recent intervention in front of Parliament Building (https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/artistbalances-parliament-barriers-highlight-fragility-democracy.1033121) it seemed that many of the passers-by took the performance as a joke or a circus act. Similarly, when, in a small experiment, I planted a sapling in the soil of a dug-up road in Sliema (What Could Be, 2019), comments on social media were dismissive, if not aggressive towards the intervention.

At the same time, experiences of exhibition-making, have led me to see the process of thinking about the final product of ‘the Exhibition’ as removed from both the creative process of the artist and audiences not necessarily comfortable in the exhibition space or conversant in the language of contemporary art in that context.

Thus, this research project proposes almost a ‘simplification’ of this process with an actively engaged, close to the audience-community, open curatorial methodology which could allow for the curator to work more closely with the artist during the creative process, a closer relationship between the artwork and the audience-community and the creation of space for dialogical conversations, critical thought, and non-partisan political thinking. The research would allow me to continue to develop a creative practice that works outside of traditional exhibition-making contexts and towards more experimental art production. While, of course, acknowledging work done by past projects (e.g. Fragmenta Malta) that have taken art practice outside of the exhibition space, the project would aim to foster a closer relationship with communities that frequent those spaces, rather than being limited to the ‘usual suspects’ of those who are already familiar with contemporary art.

Ultimately the research question around which the project is built is: How can a nomadic art space and a critical, experimental curatorial project foster civic participation and work towards unbiased and non-combative communities by bridging the gap between the creative process and audience-communities?