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Hanyun Xue / Curating (2024-2025)[SEM2]

Tag: Fluid Curating

Blog 3 – Mediums & Artists | How CAP Artists Complete My Vision

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On 12 April 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating

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.

Blog 1 – Project Title & Narrative｜From Authority to Co-Creation: Why I Curate “Fluidly”

By

On 12 April 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating

Curatorial Narrative: From Top-down Authority to Distributed Dialogue

When I first imagined Fluid Curating, I wasn’t interested in simply organizing an exhibition. I wanted to challenge something deeper: the invisible lines of power that often define who gets to choose, explain, and validate meaning in art. Traditional curating—though rich in historical methods—often centers on a single authoritative voice. What if we reimagine this voice as a chorus? What if meaning could emerge from conversation rather than instruction?

My project stems from this desire to shift away from the curator as sovereign. I was inspired by early discussions in Week 1 and Week 2 around institutions, platforms, and authorship, and began asking: who really holds curatorial power, and who gets to speak? These reflections led me to decentralisation, not as a purely technical gesture, but as a curatorial attitude—one that opens space, redistributes authorship, and invites collective meaning-making.

This shift isn’t just conceptual. It has emotional and ethical stakes. My vision for Fluid Curating is built around co-creation: an ecosystem where artists, audiences, and curators share responsibility for shaping not only the content of the exhibition, but its rhythm, its routes, and its interpretation.

Curatorial Questions Driving the Exhibition

  • Can meaning be co-authored rather than delivered?
  • What happens when audiences don’t just observe, but write, vote, and narrate?
  • If we design for decentralisation, does power truly move—or just appear to?

These questions echo many discussed in our course, especially those explored during Week 4 (Curatorial Ethics), Week 9 (Publishing as Curating), and Week 10 (Publics and Participation). They continue to guide my decisions—from spatial design to media choice, from participation structure to the ethics of attribution.

What Fluid Curating Means in Practice

Fluid Curating is not only a name, but a structure—one that puts decentralisation into curatorial action. It proposes an exhibition framework that cannot be completed without the audience. It is not “for” them, but “with” them.

The space is designed as a rhizomatic grid rather than a linear pathway, enabling visitors to navigate freely, remap meaning, and even rename spaces using coloured tape trails. The artworks—primarily participatory installations by CAP artists and invited collaborators—remain open-ended until activated by audience interaction. Visitors become necessary co-authors in bringing the work to life.

Interpretation is equally decentralised. Audiences can scan a QR code to access a shared platform (via Woolclap) where they co-write curatorial texts, share voice notes, and reflect in real time. These contributions are updated and projected daily, forming a “living wall of meaning” that evolves with each visitor’s presence.

Display arrangements are not fixed. Every three days, works are reconfigured based on audience feedback, voting, and engagement metrics. Exhibition design becomes fluid—data-driven but people-responsive.

After the show, audience-created content will be compiled into a collectively-authored Zine, capturing curatorial texts, sound fragments, and reflections. A summary market report will also be generated to visualize interaction heatmaps, keyword clusters, and value perception trends—offering emerging artists and institutions new insights into participatory demand.

This is not a spectacle of participation—it is an invitation to redefine curating itself.

Case Studies: Inspirations That Changed My Curatorial Lens

Several exhibitions and curatorial models became reference points:

  • Documenta 11’s “Platforms” (2002) replaced one curatorial voice with many.

  • Gwangju Biennale’s “Roundtable Curating” model reimagined curation as circular and collective.

  • Manifesta 6 and its offshoots like Night School transformed exhibition into experimental schools.

  • Copenhagen Free University and Tania Bruguera’s Arte de Conducta redefined artists as curators of knowledge and experience.

Together, these cases helped me see how fluid, participatory, and educational models decentralise curatorial control and share authorship with artists and publics.

Soft Reflection: From Concept to Commitment

Rather than offering a separate reflection section, I believe my project’s material and structural changes speak for themselves. Through studio visits with CAP artists, peer review exchanges, and in-class provocations, I came to see co-creation not as a supplement to curating, but as its generative core.

The move away from speculative technologies (NFTs, blockchain, AI) toward something more grounded—student-led, low-cost, audience-responsive—wasn’t a compromise. It was a choice. A choice to center experience over infrastructure, participation over programming.

As Rancière reminds us in The Emancipated Spectator, the act of seeing is never passive—it is interpretative, active, and political. Fluid Curating doesn’t just accept this—it designs for it.

Citations

  • Jeffery, Celina. The Artist as Curator. Bristol: Intellect, 2016.

  • Macdonald, Sarah. Exhibition Experiments. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.

  • Martinon, Jean-Paul. The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

  • O’Neill, Paul, and Mick Wilson. Curating and the Educational Turn. London: Open Editions, 2010.

  • Smith, Terry. Thinking Contemporary Curating. New York: Independent Curators International (ICI), 2012.

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

By

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～

W10 Reflective Blog: Rethinking “Fluid Curating” – From Conceptual Ambition to Grounded Possibility

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On 27 March 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating

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.

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

By

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:

  1. 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’?

  2. 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.

  3. Co-Creation
    Rather than presenting finished works, I want to collaborate with artists to create open structures where outcomes remain fluid and evolving.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

W8-Tracing Emotion Through Space: Three Galleries, One Heart-My Field Notes from Glasgow

By

On 11 March 2025

In 📚 Curatorial Theory & Literature Reflection, 🧭 Field Notes & Exhibition Visits

🌙 Tracing Emotion Through Space: Three Galleries, One Heart
— My Field Notes from Glasgow

When I first set out for Glasgow, I didn’t think too much. I just felt it was always worth going to see some exhibitions. But I didn’t expect that this one-day journey would leave behind so many subtle ripples inside me.

🏛 First Stop: Hunterian

It looked like the kind of museum I had always imagined—rows of neatly aligned display cases, carefully controlled lighting, and spaces so clean they resembled laboratories.
The exhibition itself was powerful, dealing with colonial medicine, bodily control, and scientific violence. I stood in front of a wax anatomical model, and suddenly I realized: this wasn’t just about “presenting knowledge” it was also a kind of violence of being observed.

I began to ask myself: as curators, when we reconstruct these histories, is there a risk that we unknowingly repeat this gaze?

Thoughts of my own curatorial project floated into my mind. If I want to tell a story about the body and memory, how should I wrap that pain? With cold light? With silence? The rationality of Hunterian made me want to rebel.

That evening, I looked up several books and tried to process the confusion I felt. In Labour and Monopoly Capital, Harry Braverman’s analysis of Fordist labor made me wonder—does exhibition design also contain a form of knowledge division and a discipline of vision? Burton Benedict’s The Anthropology of World’s Fairs opened my eyes to how spatial atmospheres shape collective psychology, affecting how we read an object.

And then there was Propaganda and Empire by John M. MacKenzie. He reminds us that exhibitions don’t just present history, they actively construct it. That struck me deeply: if I want to explore bodies and power in my project, then form itself can never be neutral.

✨ Second Stop: Tramway

The moment I entered Tramway, I knew I’d remember it for a long time.

There was no prominent signage at the entrance, but inside, the gallery unfolded like a giant dream. Maud Sulter’s You are my kindred spirit quietly lived in this space. Semi-transparent curtains drifted softly, and images emerged from behind fabric—making me slow down, as if walking through someone’s family memories.
Photos, videos, and sound fragments wove together overlapping identities of mother, daughter, and Black female poet.

What stayed with me the most was the lighting—so beautifully handled. Some artworks were rimmed with a warm glow, like the sun casting slanted rays onto old curtains at dusk. It didn’t just illuminate, it narrated. Sometimes it felt like a secret being gently lit, sometimes like longing softly crying in the corner.

There was also a “circular reading room” in the space—books, headphones, stools, a projection—arranged like a soft corner of a home. I sat there reading Sulter’s family photo albums and poetry, and suddenly I understood: an exhibition doesn’t always have to display—it can accompany.

That night I opened Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics, where he describes exhibitions as spaces of encounter. I felt so much resonance. And in Hawkins’ writing on the AIDS Memorial Quilt, I saw curating not only as a practice of structure, but as an act of social empathy.

I began to reimagine my own project Fluid Curating—could I also create a “non-exhibition corner”? A place where visitors stop reading labels, and instead pause to listen, to smell, to look at an old photo—and find their own relationship to the work?

🎬 Third Stop: GoMA

Our last stop was GoMA, where we saw John Akomfrah’s Mimesis: African Soldier. Three giant screens surrounded us, black and white war footage, slow-motion water washing over old photographs, and single-word subtitles like disenchantment and mourning, no narration, just music and fragments of visual poetry.

For a moment, I felt a bit lost. But I was completely drawn in. I remember one scene: soldiers dancing in uniform on muddy ground, music sorrowful and beautiful. I thought, maybe they were trying to reclaim their dignity as human beings in the midst of war.

I recalled Okwui Enwezor’s curatorial concept in Documenta 11, where he emphasized decentering the Western gaze and using exhibitions to address global trauma. Akomfrah’s work felt like a silent cry, a voice for lives swallowed by history. Other curatorial examples, like Red Shift or Treno, reminded me how art can be a stage for the silenced.

One line from the AIDS Memorial Quilt struck me: its center is wherever you find it. That made me realize—not every exhibition needs a clear narrative. Sometimes, scattered memories, flowing gazes, and overlapping emotions feel more true to how we actually experience life.

I started thinking seriously about non-linear structures in curating. Maybe what I need is not a “linear exhibition path,” but a kind of curatorial weaving. Not a script, but a net.

Mimesis: African Soldier — V21 Artspace | Interactive 3D Exhibition ...

🎒 What I’ve Learned Isn’t Just Curating

As the day ended, I sat on the train back to Edinburgh with a phone full of photos and audio clips. I realized I wasn’t just viewing the exhibitions, they were seeing through me. They pierced through my obsession with “explaining everything,” and slowly opened up a new awareness: exhibitions can also be felt.

I don’t want to be a curator who only explains. I want to be someone who speaks through emotion: who creates a space where viewers can find their own moments of resonance between light and shadow, between sound and silence.

📚 Further Reading

Benedict, Burton. “The Anthropology of World’s Fairs: San Francisco’s Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915.” Visual Anthropology, vol. 3, no. 1–2, 1990, pp. 17–34.

Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2002.

Braverman, Harry. Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.

Enwezor, Okwui. “The Black Box.” In Documenta 11_Platform 5: Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Ute Meta Bauer, 43–55. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2002.

Greenberg, Reesa, Bruce W. Ferguson, and Sandy Nairne, eds. Thinking about Exhibitions. London: Routledge, 1996.

Hawkins, Peter S. “Naming Names: The Art of Memory and the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt.” Critical Inquiry 19, no. 4 (1993): 752–779.

MacKenzie, John M. Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.

Wilson, Fred. “Mining the Museum.” In Fred Wilson: A Critical Reader, edited by Doro Globus, 38–49. London: Ridinghouse, 2011.

W7-Reflections on CORPSE FLOWER & New Directions for Fluid Curating 🌿🔍

By

On 4 March 2025

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

This week, I visited CORPSE FLOWER, an exhibition curated by MA Contemporary Art Practice students at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. The show examined the delicate balance between fragility and resilience in plant ecosystems, mirroring the fleeting bloom of the Titan Arum (the “Corpse Flower”)—which flowers for just a day before decaying. 🌺💫

This exhibition deeply resonated with me, not just for its ecological themes but for the way it embraced temporality, audience engagement, and archival thinking—all of which directly relate to my Fluid Curating project. This blog will reflect on key aspects of the exhibition and how they inform my curatorial framework.

🌱 Experiencing CORPSE FLOWER: A Meditation on Impermanence

As I walked through the exhibition, I was struck by how each work invited contemplation of the life cycles of nature, the passage of time, and the act of preservation. The curators used the spatial setting of the Royal Botanic Gardens effectively, situating art within an environment where organic life itself is in a constant state of change.

Curatorial Highlights That Stood Out:

Interactive Art & Audience Participation: Touch-Responsive Installation

One installation featured a digital projection of Mimosa Pudica (sensitive plants) that reacted to touch, folding its leaves when engaged.

The instructions guided visitors to interact carefully, mimicking the natural responses of living plants.

This created a haptic, embodied experience that was both scientific and poetic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interactive video：Touch-Responsive Installation

🔍 Relevance to Fluid Curating:

This installation demonstrated how simple, intuitive interactions can create a sense of immersion and engagement—something I aim to integrate into my AI-driven curatorial interfaces.

The delicate balance between control and unpredictability in the piece (the plant reacts in real-time, but only within predetermined parameters) reflects my challenge in Fluid Curating:

    • How much agency should an audience have in shaping an exhibition?
    • Where does the curator’s role shift from author to facilitator?
    • Could AI-generated curatorial statements behave like these plants—reacting, adapting, yet following certain structural constraints?

Archival Curation: Layla Knox’s “Rounding Up the Aliens” (2025)

This mixed-media installation reinterpreted Ida Margaret Hayward’s herbarium, a historical collection documenting non-native plant species in the UK.

The artist used vintage textiles, lace, and wool to reconstruct botanical forms, evoking themes of colonial botany, migration, and ecological displacement.

A poem from Hayward’s 1918 scrapbook was displayed, reinforcing the interplay between personal memory, scientific taxonomy, and artistic interpretation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

🔍 Relevance to Fluid Curating:

This piece prompted me to reconsider how curatorial practice can function as an evolving archive. Much like how Hayward’s herbarium was continually expanded, my project envisions an exhibition that accumulates audience contributions over time, rather than being fixed.

Additionally, the use of alternative materials to represent botanical specimens aligns with the way I want to explore the intersection of digital and physical archives—how do digital objects (such as NFTs) function as archival markers of artistic practice?

Bridging These Insights with My Curatorial Approach

The exhibition left me reflecting on how natural systems provide a compelling model for digital, decentralized curation. Some key takeaways for my project:

1. The Archive as a Growing Organism

  • Hayward’s herbarium was a dynamic archival practice—it documented, categorized, and evolved.
  • This is precisely what blockchain technology enables in Fluid Curating: an exhibition that records curatorial decisions over time, allowing for an expanding, decentralized archive.
  • I plan to further explore “Living Archives” (Färber, 2007) and how new media artists are using dynamic data-driven archives to rethink preservation and authorship.

2. Intuitive, Tactile Participation in Digital Curating

  • The touch-responsive plants in CORPSE FLOWER reminded me that interactivity should feel natural and rewarding.
  • Instead of making audience engagement a purely gamified voting process, I want to design AI-curated elements that respond meaningfully to audience actions—perhaps an exhibition layout that shifts in real time based on interaction metrics.
  • Exploring Claire Bishop’s (2012) work on participatory art can help clarify the power dynamics at play in audience-driven curation.

3. Temporality as a Curatorial Strategy

  • The Corpse Flower’s one-day bloom and the fleeting nature of the exhibition resonated with digital culture—where NFTs, algorithmic art, and blockchain transactions create moments of scarcity and ephemerality.
  • How might I introduce time-sensitive elements into my exhibition? Could digital works evolve, decay, or disappear over time based on market trends or audience interactions?
  • I plan to research Hito Steyerl’s (2017) writings on the “duty-free art” economy—how digital art exists in flux, between presence and absence.

 Next Steps: Integrating These Learnings into Fluid Curating

1. Refining the “Living Archive” Framework

Reviewing case studies of AI-driven curation, particularly in NFT and digital museum settings.
Mapping how blockchain could structure a decentralized exhibition history—should audience votes be permanent, or should the system allow for reversible decisions?

2. Experimenting with Interaction & Participation

Developing an interface that reacts dynamically—perhaps using algorithmic clustering to visualize shifting audience preferences over time.
Researching the balance between curator-led vision and decentralized audience influence.

3. Implementing Temporality & Scarcity into the Exhibition Model

Exploring whether certain exhibition phases could be time-sensitive, requiring participation within specific windows.
Investigating how NFTs could function as time-based contracts, altering their appearance or metadata as the exhibition progresses.

 Final Reflections: Curating as an Evolving Ecosystem

Experiencing CORPSE FLOWER reinforced my belief that curating should be an ongoing, adaptive process rather than a static event. The show’s reflection on impermanence, ecological cycles, and audience interaction pushed me to think deeper about how my own exhibition should:

Evolve dynamically over time—shaped by audiences, AI, and external forces.
Encourage intuitive participation—making audience engagement feel organic rather than imposed.
Challenge the limits of authorship—exploring how power, control, and decision-making shift in decentralized curatorial models.

Fluid Curating is becoming clearer in my mind—not just as an exhibition format, but as a way of rethinking how art is displayed, archived, and experienced in an ever-changing digital world. 🌊💡

📚 References & Further Reading

  1. Bishop, Claire. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Verso, 2012.
  2. Färber, Alexa. Exhibition Experiments. Blackwell, 2007.
  3. Martinon, Jean-Paul. The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. Bloomsbury, 2013.
  4. Rugg, Judith & Sedgwick, Michele. Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Intellect, 2007.
  5. Steyerl, Hito. Duty-Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War. Verso, 2017.

 

💬 What do you think about shifting authorship in curation? Should exhibitions be fixed, or fluid? Let’s discuss in the comments! 💭

W5&W6-Reflecting on My Curatorial Presentation & Next Steps 🚀

By

On 4 March 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating, 📚 Curatorial Theory & Literature Reflection, 🤝 Collective Practice: 11:11 Collective

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of ideas, refining concepts, and pushing my curatorial project, “Fluid Curating: Experimenting with Decentralized Art Ecologies and Archiving,” further. Last week, I finally presented my work to my peers and tutors, and it was a moment of clarity—exciting, challenging, and full of insights.

In this blog, I want to take a step back and reflect on what I presented, the feedback I received, and what’s next as I shape this project into something tangible.

🎤 Presenting “Fluid Curating”

My presentation centered on the idea that traditional exhibitions are too static—curators decide everything in advance, and audiences passively consume what’s on display. But what if exhibitions were fluid? What if they could evolve based on audience interaction, real-time AI insights, and blockchain participation?

💡 The core of Fluid Curating is:
✅ Decentralized decision-making – Artists, audiences, and algorithms all contribute.
✅ Dynamic exhibitions – Layouts, text, and artworks shift in real-time.
✅ Transparent archiving – Every change is recorded on the blockchain, creating an evolving, living archive.

A big question I posed in my presentation was:

“If an exhibition is always changing, how do we keep it conceptually coherent?”

This made me rethink the role of curatorial anchors—fixed thematic points that structure the exhibition, even as other elements change. Using AI-driven thematic mapping could be one way to ensure coherence while allowing flexibility.

📣 Feedback & Key Insights

Getting feedback from my peers and tutors was incredibly valuable. They challenged me to refine my approach, think about real-world implementation, and sharpen my project’s focus.

1️⃣ Could “Fluid Curating” work as a hybrid online-offline model?

💡 Insight: Instead of just being a physical exhibition, could there be a digital platform where people interact with the curation remotely?

📌 Next Steps:
✔ Look into NFT exhibitions like MOCA Amsterdam 2023 for hybrid models.

2️⃣ Who controls the curatorial decisions?

💡 Insight: If everything is audience-driven, does the curator still have a role? Some feedback suggested that full decentralization might weaken curatorial structure.

📌 Next Steps:
✔ Research other exhibitions that balance participatory curation with curatorial guidance.

3️⃣ How does the tech actually work?

💡 Insight: My project relies on interactive screens, AI-generated text, and blockchain voting—but how will people engage with these tools? The feedback highlighted the need for clearer descriptions of how the audience physically interacts with the exhibition.

📌 Next Steps:
✔ Identify the exact tech requirements (touchscreens, projection mapping, AR integration).
✔ Study existing interactive exhibition interfaces for reference.

4️⃣ Making the presentation more visual

💡 Insight: The feedback suggested adding more sketches, diagrams, and visual prototypes to help people understand how Fluid Curating functions in real time.

📌 Next Steps:
✔ Design mockups of the exhibition space showing audience interaction.
✔ Create data visualizations that illustrate how AI and blockchain influence the curation process.

🏛️ Fact Liverpool: Bringing the Project to a Real Space

One major takeaway from the feedback was the importance of site-specific testing. Since I’m considering FACT Liverpool as the exhibition venue, I need to visit and evaluate:

✅ Can their digital infrastructure support interactive tech?
✅ How does their audience engage with new media exhibitions?
✅ Is their space flexible enough for a constantly evolving exhibition model?

📌 Next Steps:
✔ Plan a site visit to FACT Liverpool and assess feasibility.
✔ Look at previous interactive exhibitions hosted at FACT for inspiration.

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