20 My Peer Review of Zhouyuan WU

Individual Curatorial Project：

Your blog posts so far have featured a series of discussions around the theme “Exhibitions that challenge traditional curatorial models”, showing your critical thinking about your personal curatorial projects, particularly in questioning traditional exhibition models and exploring alternative curatorial strategies, as you try to integrate approaches to decolonization, site specialization and audience interaction into your curatorial thinking.You have a solid theoretical foundation, but how to translate these theories into actionable practice for your personal curatorial projects is a question worth thinking about. In exploring exhibition Spaces, you look for many modes that break the limits of traditional exhibitions, such as family Spaces, nomadic exhibitions, and participatory installations. But how do you deal with the logistical constraints of using these non-traditional exhibition Spaces? How do you ensure that audience interaction is effective and not superficial? Perhaps you can further clarify the way the audience interacts, specifically explaining how different groups of viewers can participate and understand the content of the exhibition, especially those who lack artistic foundation.

Some exhibitions for reference:

The exhibition “Living as Form” (Creative Time, 2011), curated by Nato Thompson, offers valuable insights into socially engaged art and alternative exhibition formats.

“The People’s Biennale” (2014) — This biennale focused on alternative ways of exhibiting and audience accessibility, which might inspire strategies for engaging diverse audiences.

Collective Curatorial Programme：

The blog about The Sleepwalkers shows your ability to collaborate, negotiate, and adapt in a team. In the discussion of the collective curatorial programme, you continue to focus on the mobility and decolonisation of exhibitions. The Sleepwalkers’ collective curatorial programme is also ready to break with the traditional exhibition model, emphasizing decentralized and diversified viewing perspectives. However, there are still limitations to the research that can be seen on the collective curatorial programme: decentralized exhibitions may suffer from a lack of thematic coherence. Without a clear structural narrative, the exhibition as a whole may appear fragmented and lacking thematic cohesion. Secondly, the arrangement of exhibition personnel coordination remains to be discussed. The flexibility of exhibitions is a strength, but it is important to ensure that the work of artists, curators and institutions is coordinated, and further discussion is needed about the transportation of works, the distribution of exhibitions and the accessibility of audiences. In addition, diverse viewing perspectives create conditions for audience participation and open interpretation, but at the same time may pose barriers to certain audiences, such as those who are unfamiliar with conceptual or participatory art. In subsequent discussions, we should focus on the balance between decentralization, exhibition coherence, and accessibility of audience interaction, while reconciling concept promotion and practical implementation.

references：

Independent Curators International. Living as Form (The Nomadic Version). Accessed March 21, 2025. https://curatorsintl.org/exhibitions/9475-living-as-form-the-nomadic-version.

Biennial Foundation. People’s Biennial (USA). Accessed March 21, 2025. https://www.biennialfoundation.org/biennials/peoples-biennial-usa/.