1.Material Agency and the Logic of Awareness

In Week 12, my work transitions from gathering observations toward the deliberate planning of my final Curatorial Project report. This stage is not to draw conclusions, but to plan how to implement the research within a professional framework. By finalizing the selection of Jiang Miao, Suyon Huh, and Guo Puyi, I am grounding my curatorial gaze in a concrete study of material . Refining this project requires acknowledging that objects are not passive tools of human intent. 

As Jane Bennett argues:

Not Flower Power, or Black Power, or Girl Power, but Thing-Power: the curious ability of inanimate things toanimate, to act, to produce effects dramatic and subtle.

2. Material Agency and Site Negotiation

In planning the spatial layout for Custom Lane, I have begun to treat matter as an active participant. Jiang Miao’s carvings and Guo Puyi’s modules should not be decorative; they must function as vibrant matter in dialogue with the site’s industrial history. I plan to elaborate in the proposal on how this materiality interferes with the physical rhythm of the audience. Boris Groĭs argues: 

Meanwhile the installation itself has been blessed with art status: installation has become accepted as an art form and increasingly assumes a leading role in contemporary art. So even though the individual images and objects lose their autonomous status, the entire installation gains it back.

This means that my curatoral plan must respect the physical resistance of the material and transform it into a kind of perceptual care.

3.Ethical Integration of Curatorial Components

Finally, I am planning how to integrate the ethical reflections from the Ji Ju collective into my SICP. The curatorial proposal is not only about vision, but also about the management of relationships. I will establish a transparent operation framework, covering artist labor fees, barrier-free design, and collaboration with venue supervisors. I realized that curation is a complex configuration composed of multiple components. This instructs me to ensure that every administrative and technical detail serves the overall ethical commitment of the exhibition before the last week’s summary.

Notes：

1.Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter : A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, [N.C: Duke University Press, 2010, 6.

2.Groĭs, Boris. Art Power. Cambridge, Mass. ; MIT Press, 2008,  53-54.

Week 12 | Planning the Curatorial Project: From Insights to Structural Enactment / Siqi Xue / Curating (2025-2026)[SEM2] by is licensed under a