Tag: collaborative curation

Reflective Blog: Rethinking “Fluid Curating” – From Conceptual Ambition to Grounded Possibility

1. Initial Vision: A Decentralized, Tech-Driven Exhibition

When I first began shaping the idea for Fluid Curating, my ambition was to create a dynamic, audience-led exhibition model that fully embraced decentralization—where curatorial authority would no longer rest solely with the curator but be shared with artists, audiences, and market forces.
I was drawn to terms like “NFT,” “blockchain,” and “Web3,” which seemed to promise transparency, open participation, and algorithmic co-curation.
Inspired by digital culture and new media trends, I envisioned a hybrid exhibition across a physical site and online platform, with real-time artwork reconfiguration based on audience voting and NFT market trends.

2. Critical Feedback and Conceptual Challenges

However, during peer review and my tutorial feedback, I was faced with key challenges that pushed me to rethink this plan.

One major issue was the conceptual clarity of some core elements. My peer reviewer, Yuhang Yang, questioned how terms like NFT and blockchain—actually supported the idea of a “fluid” or time-sensitive curatorial logic. As I reflected on this, I began to see the contradiction: while my project sought to highlight ephemerality, transformation, and flux, NFTs, by their very nature, are mechanisms for permanence, ownership, and archival preservation. Their association with speculative market value also risked reducing curatorial decision-making to financial metrics, which ran counter to the community-led values I wanted to embrace.

Another question raised during feedback was: What tool or system could actually support this curatorial complexity in practice? I realized my original plan combined too many advanced technologies and open-ended processes without clearly demonstrating how they would function together. As a result, the exhibition risked becoming fragmented—more of a conceptual collage than a coherent experience.

Beyond conceptual concerns, there were also practical limitations. My initial choice of venue—FACT Liverpool—was exciting but ultimately unrealistic. The projected budget far exceeded the £2000 limit.
The technical demands, duration, and uncertainty of long-term online platform maintenance added more instability.

These challenges didn’t discourage me—instead, they became catalysts for productive rethinking.

3. Turning Point: Visiting Participatory Works by CAP Students

A defining moment in my curatorial journey came during a joint event between CAT (Contemporary Art Theory) and CAP (Contemporary Art Practice) students.

blog link:

https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/s2500923_curating-2024-2025sem2/2025/03/16/%f0%9f%8e%a1-w9-speed-curating-at-cat-x-cap-conversations-that-sparked-something-real/

This experience moved me deeply. I was struck by the raw potential of these young artists, their vulnerability, and their innovative use of participation. Many works relied on interaction—audiences speaking, touching, or altering the piece to complete it.

And suddenly, something clicked.

I had spent so much time trying to simulate “fluidity” through technology—imagining algorithmically shifting displays, blockchain-backed value systems, ever-changing screen layouts.

I thought decentralisation meant sophisticated mechanisms: rapid visual updates, complex voting platforms, market-responsive curation. But here, right in front of me, were works that already embodied decentralisation, through something more organic: Audience participation.

These artworks didn’t need flashy screens or AI sensors. What they needed was space—for the audience to step in, to shape meaning, to complete the work.

I realised that the artists and I had been walking parallel paths—both seeking to blur authorship, to soften control, to share decision-making. In that moment, I saw myself not as a controller of space, but as a facilitator of resonance. My curatorial voice didn’t have to dominate; it could listen, invite, and hold.

This was the real turning point. I let go of the need for tech-heavy infrastructure and embraced a more grounded, people-centered approach.

4. Rethinking Participation: From Tech to Human Presence

Around the same time, I was writing peer feedback for Xuchuyue’s curatorial project. She used opera not just as a theme, but as a structural framework—with rhythm, tension, and release shaping the audience’s emotional journey.

Her approach made me question my own assumptions. I had believed audience engagement needed to be mediated through technology. But her project reminded me: participation can begin with something far simpler. Inviting someone into another’s story, another’s voice, can be a powerful act of decentralization.

I began asking myself: Where does emotion happen in my exhibition? Have I left enough space for people to feel, not just interact?

What I’ve Learned

This journey has taught me that decentralization in curating isn’t just a structural or technological shift—it’s a relational practice. It means inviting people in, letting go of control, and designing with sensitivity to affect, ethics, and community.

Reading and responding to Xuchuyue’s work opened my eyes to emotional architecture. Visiting the CAP studios showed me the strength of collaboration over spectacle. And listening to feedback forced me to ask hard but important questions.

In the end, Fluid Curating is no longer a conceptual ambition suspended in technical abstraction. It is now a practice grounded in people, space, and story—one that breathes, listens, and changes with those who participate.

Mar 27, 2025

🎡 W9 (2) – Speed Curating at CAT × CAP: Conversations that Sparked Something Real

By Hanyun Xue

On 16 March 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating, 💬 Peer Exchange & Curatorial Dialogue, 🧭 Field Notes & Exhibition Visits

Hi everyone,

This week I participated in a special joint event between CAT (Contemporary Art Theory) and CAP (Contemporary Art Practice) students. We met not on Teams, but face-to-face in the West Court, and I have to say—it was more inspiring than I imagined.

The format was based on Speed Curating, a method adapted from the UK Arts Council. CAP students introduced their art practices in quick 2-minute bursts, while us CAT students shared five key curatorial interests. It was fast, a little chaotic, but filled with energy and curiosity.

🎨 Meeting Artists, Meeting Possibilities

As a CAT student working on my Fluid Curating project, this event was a goldmine. I heard so many artist presentations that aligned with what I’ve been thinking about—audience interaction, sensory engagement, performative gestures, and curating as a living process.

Some CAP students showed deeply personal work about memory, others presented interactive installations. I had some great chats about how audiences can intervene, not just observe; how we might co-create exhibitions where the boundaries between artist, curator, and viewer start to dissolve.

✨ My Five Curatorial Keywords

To help introduce my ideas during the event, I shared five key themes that define my practice. I’ll share them here too:

Decentralised Curation
I want to challenge top-down models. Can the audience’s decisions, movements, and emotions shape the exhibition just as much as the curators’?
Audience Intervention
I’m interested in how viewers might not just observe, but alter—touching, rearranging, or reshaping the work as part of the exhibition itself.
Co-Creation
Rather than presenting finished works, I want to collaborate with artists to create open structures where outcomes remain fluid and evolving.
Curation as Process
I see curating as something unfolding in time. Not a fixed result, but a process that’s shaped by those who enter the space and what they bring.
Shifting Curatorial Authority
What happens when curators give up control, and artists invite intervention? Can letting go create something more alive, more real?

These ideas became beautiful conversation starters. Some CAP students lit up when I described exhibitions as perception practice fields, or when I said, “What if we don’t design the message, but design a mood and let the rest happen?”

One of the artists, Sijia Chen, shared a tree with us—though not just any tree. This one was an installation made of welded steel branches, fuzzy pink yarn, and sparkling hanging ornaments. Right in the center stood a solid metal trunk, something she built herself.
She said it represents those immovable forces in our world—systems, structures, or maybe even fate. But what caught my attention were the branches. Around the steel frame, she invited us to add colorful bendable sticks (they had wires inside, so we could twist them into shapes).
People made spirals, loops, even strange little symbols. This wasn’t just decoration. She called it “an editable tree.”

And honestly, I loved that phrase.

The idea behind it was so powerful. Sure, the trunk—the core—is fixed. But everything around it? Open to change.
It’s a metaphor for participation within structure, for how individuals can intervene, re-shape, and re-narrate even within rigid systems. It reminded me so much of what I’m trying to do with Fluid Curating. Not to destroy the framework of exhibitions, but to invite others into it. To say, “Come, add your branch.” The editable tree became, in that moment, a perfect symbol of co-creation. It was poetic, but also quietly radical.

I walked away thinking: maybe my own curatorial space could offer this same gesture. A framework that’s solid, but soft around the edges. A space where people don’t just observe, but gently re-edit what’s there.

Another work that really stuck with me came from artist Xudong Jia. He showed us a digital interactive piece—on screen, it looked like pink flowers exploding outward, or maybe colorful ink swirling in water. It was beautiful at first glance, almost hypnotic.
Then he told us the title: The Evil Flower.

The screen was equipped with facial recognition. Every time someone approached, the image would shift. The flower would grow bigger, darker, more aggressive.
Jia explained that the piece was about the butterfly effect, about online violence—how no single snowflake in an avalanche is innocent. The more people watched, the more the flower “blamed” them.

It hit me hard. The interactivity wasn’t playful, it was accusatory. You weren’t in control of the work—it was confronting you. That twist in perspective really stayed with me. It wasn’t interaction for interaction’s sake; it was interaction as responsibility.
I kept thinking about how this could fit into my own idea of Fluid Curating—where audience behavior doesn’t just “complete” the exhibition, it actually shapes its emotional direction. What if interactivity could be unsettling? What if being seen by the artwork is part of the artwork?

This piece challenged me. And that’s exactly what I want my exhibitions to do.

🧠 Reflections and Next Steps

This session wasn’t just useful—it was moving. I left with several artists I’d love to follow up with. Some of them are exploring clay as a soft resistance. Others are working with sound, text, or ephemeral materials.
I can already imagine co-curating something gentle, open, and audience-responsive together.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be deepening my readings on participatory art and affective curating. I’ve already started noting quotes from Curating and the Educational Turn that feel like they’re speaking directly to what I’m trying to do:

“They seem to seek not the masterful production of expertise… but the co-production of question, ambiguity and enquiry.” (O’Neill and Wilson, 2013)

Yes. That’s exactly it.

This was more than a networking session. It was a seed-planting moment. And I’m already looking forward to what might grow.

Mar 16, 2025