Introduction

Considering the week 10 lecture on publics and public engagement I committed to do further reading into one of the mentioned texts, Curatorial counter-rhetorics and the educational turn, in which Mick Wilson and Paul O’neill (2010)  discussed the relationship between an emerging focus on social issues within contemporary art. This is bolstered by texts like Mapping the Contexts of Contemporary Curating: The Visual Arts Exhibitionary Complex, by Terry Smith (2017), which has displayed the evolving tendency amongst modern and contemporary curation, to design programmes with an emphasis on the participation of the viewer as a meaning making agent within the museum and gallery context (Caro, 2015).

Curation has become a means of increasingly speaking to the social concerns of gallery attendees and society at large. In tandem with participatory development, spurred by an attentiveness to the public, is the need to find ways to communicate the esoteric theories and paradigms of the artworld to an audience who is not aware of the cultural, philosophical, and theoretical frameworks that many contemporary art exhibitions are developed under. Here, the curator has taken on a mediator role (Sansi-Roca, 2020), acting as an interpreter of culture. Accessibility to comprehension is put at the centre of the curatorial process, with curatorial mediums of publication, talks, and public engagement programs being used as an educational tool in conjunction with public exhibitions (Wilson and O’neill, 2010).

As previously discussed in my week 10 blog post on ethics, it is my responsibility as curator to make the issues raised in the ecological artworks known to the public. As a result, a public engagement program will be developed alongside the running of Weird Frictions, with the intention to elucidate the structure of the gallery exhibition and expand on the themes expressed. Additionally, engagement with the local community is one of Strange Field’s strategic priorities, thus aligning my curatorial concerns with organisational goals.

Like with the ATLAS Arts programme (discussed in week 6) , these workshops will offer a relevance to the East End of Glasgow, allowing participants to view the city through an ecological lens

Event 1:

Lance Laoyan is a Filipino artist living in the Netherlands, whose practice revolves around creating experimental site-specific research that acts as an investigation into a specific location. Using multimodal methods of listening, the results of his research often manifest as walking pieces, focusing on the act of listening to the land and fostering a closer intimacy with natural surroundings through acts that are intended to create an increased awareness of space and empathy with ecology.

Within Weird Friction the artist would have a 3 day long residency to produce a responsive hour long workshop reflecting  on the local Glasgow greenspace a 10 minute walk from the gallery.

I believe that a commissioned workshop would play an important role in extending the exhibition narrative that I have developed. Within the gallery space the future section compels a visitor to appraise what they want the future to look like, while the present section stimulates the visitor to think about the current actions they take through introspective somatic tasks, and politically urgent pieces. Laoyan’s workshop would act as an extension of the present, guiding participants to put the goal of the exhibition into practice as they physically situate themselves in a green space, and find an awareness for themselves as ‘rhizome’ within an interconnected network of humans and non-humans.

I initially sought this artist in response to a tutorial with Dr Julie Louise Bacon, in which we identified artwork that situates the body through attention to somatic tasks to be a division of artwork that explicitly locates the visitor in the present. Further, within the curated event Gurrl Dinner I witnessed that workshop spaces became a site for discussion, and knowledge-making as part of the network. I believe that group working events that encourage networked thinking primes the audience to start thinking of themselves as agents within larger levels of infrastructure.

Event 2:

Layla Knox, who is one of the two artists contributing to the ‘Present’ section of the exhibition, exhibiting Chapel Paintings.

In my micro exhibition Mycorrhizal, she combined yarn and naturally found materials to make pieces like Nettle Weaving and Lichen. These pieces acted as artifacts of care, demonstrating a deep understanding of natural materials through a history of interaction, as evidenced in the finished objects. Within the event Knox would lead a group through a foraging exercise, sourcing natural materials from nearby greenspaces, and leading attendees through the process of combining yarn and plant matter to form artifacts of care. Like the Laoyan event, I anticipate that this event will serve as an activity that both grounds the participants in the present, whilst generating the call to action that is suggested through the ‘Future’ section. At the end of the exhibition the attendees may be left with the question of the direction that they could take to realise the forms of future they wish to see. A workshop focused on mindful attentiveness through craft can act to direct us to a methodology of care.

This event would be comprised of two parts – a foraging event occurring in Dassie Park, and a craft-based event based in the gallery space (pieces will be moved to accommodate a big enough space).

Both events 1 and 2 take place in the nearby greenspace Dassie Park, meeting in the gallery and then embarking on the 10-minute journey to the event space. For accessibility purposes both walking events will be clearly labelled as such, clearly noting that extended standing will make up most of the outdoor exercises. I want to utilise the park location as it serves to activate the local area but also seems to be an overlooked space for Strange Field gallery visitors. Due to poorly connecting train times, I ended up taking the 30-minute walk through the park from Glasgow central station to Strange Field, rather than the train to Bridgeton station. When talking to other visitors to the gallery I found out that, though many visitors had been to the gallery many times, some visitors had not even realised the extent of the greenspace just a short walk away, instead opting for the quicker urban travel. These events act to bring awareness to climate concerns, but also an awareness to local greenspace around Glasgow.

Event 3:

The last event will be a curatorial talk, offering tours to visitors to discuss the philosophical contemporary themes that emerged throughout the curatorial process, the logic behind the spatial arrangement of art, as well as the meaning behind the included pieces. I originally discussed this in a tutorial with Dr Julie Louise Bacon. Though I developed an intended exhibition narrative, and a suggested order of engagement through subtle physical arrangements, the gallery is arranged in a way that allows free roaming. Additionally, the concept of friction became a methodology, with most pieces being purposefully visible/audible from any point in the room.

Although this is a theoretically important element of the curation, it can simultaneously be an overwhelming and disjointing experience for a viewer, especially those who suffer from sensory overload. A structured tour that focuses on the components of the exhibition piece by piece will provide an a more ordered gallery experience, allowing individuals a greater insight into the work on display, and allowing more people to experience the exhibition. Finally,  Evaluation of paintings: Effects of lectures, by Stojilovic, and Markovic (2014) found that information provided by lectures resulted in a higher evaluation of the artwork that they were taught about. I can conclude that having a curatorial talk will act to increase the reception of the exhibition amongst participants.

Schedule:

The Exhibition runs for 2 weeks.

Event 1 will happen on the first day of opening (a Saturday). This will be in place of an opening night and will be an event that will stimulate public interest in the Exhibition.

Event 2 will happen a week later the following Saturday.

Event 3 will happen the following day from event 2 on a Sunday.

I have chosen weekends for all events to maximise the number of individuals able to attend.

A more developed public schedule will be developed in subsequent blog posts.

Bibliography:

• ‌Caro, L. (2015). Moulding the Museum Medium: Explorations on Embodied and Multisensory Experience in Contemporary Museum Environments. ICOFOM Study Series, (43b), pp.55–70.
• Sansi-Roca, R. (2020). The Anthropologist as Curator. London ; New York, Ny: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Smith, T. (2017). Mapping the Contexts of Contemporary Curating: The Visual Arts Exhibitionary Complex. Journal of Curatorial Studies, 6(2), pp.170–180.
• Stojilovic, I. and Markovic, S. (2014). Evaluation of paintings: Effects of lectures. Psihologija, 47(4), pp.415–432.
• Wilson, M. and O’Neill, P. (2010). Curatorial counter-rhetorics and the educational turn. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 9(2), pp.177–193.

Week 13: Public Engagement Programme / Harry Mayston / Curating (2024-2025)[SEM2] by is licensed under a