The curatorial practices explored in your blog address two significant contemporary curatorial concerns: the Definition of Reality and Sustainable Curatorship. These approaches demonstrate how curatorship can intervene in social issues and challenge audience perception. However, they also face methodological and practical challenges, including the constraints of medium, the passive positioning of audiences, and the risk of curatorial practice becoming a symbolic critique rather than a catalyst for actual change.

The curatorial project Who Defines “Reality”? examines how visual technologies manipulate perception, emphasizing the interplay of technology, power, and reality. This resonates with Massimiliano Gioni’s The Encyclopedic Palace at the 2013 Venice Biennale, which explores how images and knowledge construct reality (Mousse Magazine 2013). It also aligns with Hito Steyerl’s notion of the “war of resolution” in In Free Fall, where reality in the digital age is shaped by imaging technologies, political forces, and perceptual habits (Steyerl 2011). However, this narrative remains rooted in a Western-centric, linear media progression—from mechanical to digital, from physical to virtual. In Techniques of the Observer, Jonathan Crary challenges this perspective, arguing that visual perception evolves through social and cultural influences rather than following a single trajectory of technological advancement (Crary 1992). To broaden its scope, the exhibition should incorporate non-Western visual traditions and multidimensional conceptions of reality. Moreover, Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator questions whether exhibitions genuinely engage audiences as active participants or merely position them as passive recipients (Rancière 2011). Without open-ended interaction, audiences remain bound by curatorial logic. An interactive, participatory system could help break this unidirectional experience.

Similarly, the Waste Not, Want Not exhibition raises critical questions about sustainability and material reuse, challenging consumerist culture. However, such curatorial practices often face an inherent contradiction: while advocating environmental consciousness, exhibitions themselves consume resources. Do their structures adhere to sustainable principles? Have artists genuinely reduced their carbon footprint, or is sustainability merely a curatorial concept? Hal Foster critiques contemporary exhibitions that superficially engage with social issues without fundamentally altering their material operations (Foster 2014). To strengthen its commitment, this exhibition could employ fully recyclable or biodegradable structures and foster long-term collaborations with local communities to ensure sustainability is more than a conceptual display. Furthermore, while promoting community engagement, the exhibition must question whether it truly enables audiences to become co-creators. If visitors remain passive observers of how artists repurpose materials, it risks falling into a conventional exhibition model. Instead, incorporating participatory elements—such as co-creation workshops or a material exchange initiative—would allow audiences to engage directly with the process of reuse.

Both projects exemplify curating as a medium—curatorship not just as exhibition-making, but as a mode of knowledge production, social intervention, and experiential transformation. As exhibitions evolve from static displays to dynamic, interactive platforms, curators must actively bridge technological, political, and ecological concerns while guiding audiences into critical engagement through spatial, interactive, and narrative strategies. Whether addressing reality’s manipulation or material sustainability, these projects extend beyond the conventional museum framework, pointing toward a more experimental and socially participatory curatorial direction.

Bibliography

My Peer Review of Puxian Wang / Hua Ding / Curating (2024-2025)[SEM2] by is licensed under a