Tag: CAP Artists

From Medium to Method: Why Participation is Not a Detail, but a Design

When I first imagined Fluid Curating, I thought of systems and formats: interactive platforms, voting walls, flexible spaces. But it wasn’t until I stepped into the CAP studios that I realized this project had a pulse—and it beat in the artworks of my peers.

During the CAP × CAT Curatorial Encounter (Week 8), I was introduced to a series of participatory works by emerging artists that didn’t just use audience interaction—they needed it. These weren’t completed artworks waiting for interpretation. They were frameworks in waiting, systems unfinished, until the viewer stepped in. In them, I saw the living embodiment of what I had only theorized: curatorial decentralization.

Artist 1: Chen Sijia
In her SQUEEZE ME series (2024), Chen Sijia creates silicone-based objects that invite the audience to physically press, bend, and manipulate the surfaces—transforming passive spectators into haptic co-performers. Her 2025 piece Matree, Patree takes it further: participants use pipe cleaners to modify a rigid genealogical structure, collectively rewriting family trees.

“Her work embodies the tension between personal and political inheritance. The audience doesn’t just watch, they rewrite.”

Why she fits: Sijia’s practice resonates with Jacques Rancière’s idea of the emancipated spectator (2009). Her work empowers audiences to act, not just reflect.

Artist 2: Jia Xudong
With The Banality of Evil (2025), Jia uses TouchDesigner to create an interactive video work where digital flowers bloom in proportion to the number of viewers in the room. The more eyes, the more “evil” it becomes—a haunting commentary on complicity and collective violence.

“It’s a real-time ethical question rendered as art. And it cannot function without the audience.”

Why he fits: His work echoes Paul O’Neill’s notion of curating as an expanded educational space (Curating and the Educational Turn, 2010), prompting not only interaction but self-inquiry.

Artist 3: Fiza
Fiza’s Mimosa Touch installation offers a botanical metaphor for sensitivity and response. The work reacts to the audience’s touch like a plant—folding, shifting, responding. Viewers aren’t just visitors, they are caretakers.

“It’s a choreography between the human and the vegetal—a shared sensory world.”

Why she fits: Her work supports my shift away from technological spectacle and towards relational aesthetics, as described by Nicolas Bourriaud (1998).

Artist 4: Keyi Ju
Keyi constructs multisensory interventions that simulate estrangement: obstructing vision, heightening sound, manipulating touch. Her installations are gentle disorientations that require full audience presence. The space becomes not a gallery, but a body.

“Her work makes you feel like a guest in your own skin. That friction is where meaning is made.”

Why she fits: Keyi’s use of spatial perception echoes Aneta Szyłak’s theory of “curating context” (The Curatorial, 2013), where space and sensation are integral to meaning.

From Artist Works to Curatorial Logic

Each of these artists confirmed that my curatorial vision didn’t need to invent participation—it needed to host it. Their work led me to restructure my exhibition around living systems that respond to presence.

I no longer separate artwork from structure. The mediums here are not only silicone, projection, wire, or sound. They are interaction, negotiation, friction. These artists are not exhibitors. They are co-authors of a curatorial body that breathes with its audience.

In choosing them, I made a choice not to curate around a theme, but around a method: participation as method, not motif. That’s what makes Fluid Curating truly fluid.

Bibliography

Bourriaud, Nicolas. 1998. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les Presses du Réel.
Martinon, Jean-Paul, ed. 2013. The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
O’Neill, Paul, and Mick Wilson, eds. 2010. Curating and the Educational Turn. London: Open Editions / Amsterdam: De Appel.
Rancière, Jacques. 2009. The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso.
Szyłak, Aneta. 2013. “Curating Context.” In The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating, edited by Jean-Paul Martinon, 217–226. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Apr 12, 2025

Week 10(2) | Expanding the Concept of “Fluid Curating”

By Hanyun Xue

On 30 March 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating

🌊 My Exhibition Is Not a “Finished Product,” But a Flowing Relationship

This week, I finally gathered the courage to sort through the curatorial ideas that had been drifting in my head for a long time.
From questioning whether curators should hold total control, to writing down the full framework for my project “Fluid Curating,” I feel like I’ve found a direction that is both gentle and powerful.

This exhibition doesn’t present an outcome. Instead, it invites everyone to co-create the process itself.

📍Project Title: Fluid Curating

Subtitle: A Decentralised Ecosystem of Co-Creation

Keywords: Decentralisation, Co-Creation, Participatory Curation, Audience Agency, Interactive Installation, Non-linear Space, Dynamic Display, Collective Text-Making, Art + Data Feedback

📌 Venue: Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) Main Building Lobby

Online Open Curatorial Platform (for voting and text interaction)

The online and offline components will be fully integrated. The exhibition is no longer limited to one location, but becomes a continually evolving space of shared creation.

🧭 Curatorial concept: How to embody “decentralization”?

1.🎨 Artists / Artworks

Participatory works by ECA CAP students
Community-sourced participatory artworks

All works require audience interaction to be completed. Here, the audience is not just a viewer, but a co-creator.

2.🗓 Duration

On-site exhibition: 7 days (updated daily based on audience contributions)
Online platform: Open for 14 days (for ongoing discussion, artwork submission, text gathering, feedback, and data collection)

We hope this mechanism of “daily change” encourages ongoing participation and allows the exhibition to breathe and grow.

3.🧭 Layout Without a Map

The exhibition will take place in the ECA main building lobby. We’ll abandon linear routes and create a rhizomatic layout—

Everyone navigates based on their own steps and emotions.

Coloured lines will be arranged on the floor. Audiences can name areas and pathways: some might call it the “Hallway of Tenderness,” while others rename it the “Unfinished Memory.”

Every name changes daily. Every line might mean something new tomorrow.

4.🎧 Sound as Resonance, Not Just Ambience

I imagined a corner called the “Sound Bazaar.”
You can put on headphones and hear stories left by others,
or press a button and record your feelings about a piece.

You can stay anonymous, or speak your name. It’s not a statement. It’s a connection.

These recordings will rotate daily, like a slowly growing radio programme,
curated by all of us, together.

5.🖋 Curatorial Text, Written by Everyone

There are no fixed labels or curator-written statements. Instead, each artwork will be paired with a QR code. Audience members can scan and use Woolclap, a free platform, to write their interpretation.

These words will be projected onto the wall in real-time, forming a flowing audience-generated language wall.

Some write stories, others memories, some just leave a single word.
All of it becomes the curatorial text—not the explanation, but the emotion.

6.🌀 The Audience as Installer and Meaning-Maker

Every three days, we’ll rearrange displays based on audience votes
Visitors can vote, comment, name sections, and actively participate in the works
The whole exhibition is a living system that evolves with interaction

I want to show that an exhibition is not a fixed space, but a network of ongoing relationships.

7.🧭 Curatorial Ethics

All audience contributions (voice/text) can be submitted anonymously or with credit
All content will go through moderation to avoid bias or harm
Data is used only for analysis and remains open-access, not for commercial use

While we decentralise curatorial power, we also build gentle and trustworthy boundaries.

🎤 Public Lecture: Who Gets to Define Curatorial Discourse?

We’ll host an open conversation titled “The Shift of Curatorial Power”, inviting lecturers, students, and visitors to join.

Our aim is to show:
Curatorial discourse can be redistributed. Audiences, participants, and creators all have the right to be producers of meaning.

♿Accessibility

Audio guides and bilingual (Chinese/English) interface
Quiet hours and low-sensory zones
Navigation and access co-designed with ECA students with disabilities
Multi-sensory experiences (sound and touch as alternatives to visuals)

We want everyone to enter the exhibition in their own way.

💹 Post-Exhibition Outputs

A collaboratively written Zine featuring audience-created curatorial texts, sold as a takeaway souvenir
A “Decentralised Art Market Trend Report” summarising voting results, feedback, and interaction data—offered as insight for artists and local institutions

Every vote, every comment, every interaction will be recorded, respected, and allowed to shine beyond the exhibition.

🗺 Timeline

Week	Activity
W1–W2	Concept development, artist open call, communication with CAP students and venue coordination
W3–W4	Platform building, tool testing, material preparation
W5	Installation and soft launch testing audience flow
W6	Full exhibition launch: daily interactions + data collection + co-creation processes
W7	Final wrap-up, Zine editing, and trend report compilation

💰 Budget

Item	Amount
Multimedia equipment	£400
Exhibition materials (fabric, lighting, etc.)	£300
Promotional materials	£150
Zine printing	£300
Artist transport + volunteer support	£200
Contingency fund	£200

📌 Tutorial Feedback & Next Steps

During this week’s tutorial, I received clear and constructive feedback from my tutor:

The venue has officially changed from FACT Liverpool to the ECA Main Building Lobby, which suits the participatory nature of my project better.
I need to list the names of participating artists, especially those from the CAP course.
Given the production demands and artist involvement, it was suggested that I slightly increase the budget to allow for artist fees and support.
My public programme should be expanded, with more detailed planning around outcomes and visitor experience.
I was also reminded to further develop the section on EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) and Ethics, especially considering audience co-creation and content moderation.
And finally, I must ensure that everything clearly aligns with the Learning Outcomes of the course.

These reminders helped me see the gaps in my current plan. I’m now revisiting the structure of my public events, adding clearer frameworks for things like the sound radio rotation, collaborative zine editing, and how the audience’s voice will be projected and documented across the space.

In the next blog, I’ll begin filling in those details—step by step～

Mar 30, 2025