Suzana Milevska: Curator as a Translator of Theory into Practice

WORLD OF ART
Laboratorium of Curatorial Practices
Season 12: 2008/09

Workshop in four parts

April 10-13, 2009
Project Room SCCA, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana
Application deadline: April 1, 2009

The four day long workshop will try to show how important is the relation between contemporary curating and theoretical discourses and how important it is that the position of contemporary curator is epistemologically explained. With the term translation (instead of ‘use’) we emphasize the awareness of limitations which occur when theoretical concepts are used as an excuse/advocacy of the curatorial choice of models, strategies and relationships instead of using this concepts as starting points for a self-critical reflection on art and curatorial choices.

The workshop will try to give an answer to the following questions:

  • whether theory confines curating or enables more innovative curatorial models
  • whether one of the roles of contemporary art curators, to address complex and socially relevant questions, produces more versatile and contextually sensitive truth when theoretical models are consulted
  • how the process of translation of various theoretical, cultural, and artistic concepts into specific projects embrace and promote the pedagogical and epistemological responsibility
  • how to apply theory in curating without giving to it primary role
  • how to intertwine theory and issues that stem out of everyday life

The workshop will be conducted in English.

PROGRAM

The workshop will be conducted in four parts:

  1. competition, communication with the participants
  2. expanding curatorial knowledge (morning lectures)
  3. curatorial alchemy – translating theory into practice (afternoon workshops)
  4. presentations/exhibition

FRIDAY and SATURDAY, April 10-11, 2009

Morning: 10.00-13.30
The two morning lectures will present theoretical introductions to different topics and models of curating based on these theories. Examples of exhibitions/works applying theories that challenged truth/archives, gender, participation will be presented.

Afternoon: 15.00-18.00
1 day – workshops with close reading of the proposed texts and discussion of the impact of different theories on curating
2 day – individual presentations of the participants and work in small groups towards designing concepts of small projects dealing with the introduced theoretical discourses and the (video) works from SCCA collection.

SUNDAY and MONDAY, April 12-13, 2009

10.00-18.00 (break: 13.00-15.00)
Work in groups. The goal of the workshop is forming a concept, its presentation and setting up an exhibition in the SCCA Project Room.

LITERATURE

Suzana MilevskaSuzana Milevska is a curator and a visual culture theorist based in Skopje. Her research and curatorial interests include postcolonial critique of art institutions, gender studies of art and participatory art. She is a professor in Art History and Analysis of Styles at Accademia Italiana and New York University in Skopje.

APPLICATION AND INFORMATION:

The price for the workshop is 25 EUR for individuals and 35 EUR for representatives of the institutions. The workshop will be conducted in English.

Application date: April 1, 2009

Attach to the registration:

  • a short biography
  • a short text about why you wish to participate

The registration should be sent to the address svetumetnosti@scca-ljubljana.si or brought personally to the address
SCCA-Ljubljana, Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana
by March 15, 2009 (office hours: 11.00-15.00).

CONTACT

SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana
Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana
Contact persons: Petja Grafenauer
tel.: 041 367 425, fax: (01) 430 06 29
e-mail: svetumetnosti@scca-ljubljana.si