Week 6 Publishing as curatorial practice

Lecture Reflection

The lecture discussed publishing as an artistic practice. This publishing is where the a kind of “indie publishers collective imagination” (Hindley, 2019) emerges. As such, it allows people to explore artistic territories and capacities and start conversations about new possibilities from texts gathered from all kinds of arts stakeholders. The best thing about publishing is to dig into the tricky and complex questions and articulate them in a way that people can relate to and engage with (THE MUSEUM OF LOSS AND RENEWAL, 2022). Themes and issues that are touched upon in art practice can be discussed in depth in a publication. In addition, publications have a role to play in the excavation and reinterpretation of memories, such as an archive, and the GIVE BIRTH TO ME TOMORROW festival produced a publication to preserve and revive the emotional changes of the moment (Benmakhlouf & Taal, 2021). To document in a publication is to recall and revive in writing how they contributed and practised in many processes.

For my curatorial project

Having said that the advantage of publishing is that it can explore complex questions and express ways in which people can empathize and engage (THE MUSEUM OF LOSS AND RENEWAL, 2022), I think that my interest in street art is that the work itself takes on a ‘publication’ like role. In the first place, street art is integrated into the context of each locality and contains important topics that contribute to the public space (Di Brita, 2019). In other words, street art provides an opportunity to discuss the topic of social and political issues in the area to which the artwork belongs, and thus to an unspecified number of people. By exposing them to the public space, people are implicitly encouraged to reach out to them and actually start a conversation or discuss the subject on the internet. Furthermore, as street art usually has a strong association with the city whose walls it depicts, the people around it often share common themes and issues; according to Bertasa et al. (2021), street art often has social concerns chosen as the subject matter of the work. Thus, street art can be considered to have the same strengths that publishing has in presenting a controversial subject and giving people the opportunity to respond to it and have a conversation.

References:

Benmakhlouf, A. & Taal, T. (2021). Give Birth to Me Tomorrow. LUX Scotland, Glasgow, Scotland. p. 6-9.

Bertasa, M., Ricci, C., Scarcella, A., Zenucchini, F., Pellis, G., Croveri, P., & Scalarone, D. (2020). Overcoming challenges in street art murals conservation: A comparative study on cleaning approach and methodology. Coatings, 10(11), 1019.

Di Brita, T. (2019). The Disappearance/Virtualisation of Graffiti and Street Art. SAUC-Street Art and Urban Creativity, 5(2), 6-17.

Hindley, V. (2019). Publishing as Artistic Practice: In Conversation With Michalis Pichler. The MIT Press Reader. Accessed on March 18, 2024. Retrieved from https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/publishing-as-artistic-practice/

THE MUSEUM OF LOSS AND RENEWAL. (2022). Place, People and Time: Publishing as an Artistic Practice Residency Report. Accessed on March 18, 2024. Retrieved from
https://themuseumoflossandrenewal.life/place-people-time-publishing-as-an-artistic-practice-2022/