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The map was my first attempt at summarising the first two
and a half weeks of Curating Lab. While somewhat constrained by the breadth of
two envelopes, the map format accurately reflects my sense of having been part
of a Dérive, or what one might call a 'purposeful wandering', that had been in
my opinion, masterfully designed for us eleven strangers to make our way
through the landscape of contemporary curating.
Contrary to Guy Debord's notion of psychogeography that
takes place within the city of Paris, the first day of the Curatorial Intensive
was a global tour led by Latitudes from the comfort of the National Library.
From Amsterdam to Spain to London, and then the Interweb, the comforting, if
rather dog-eared definition of a curatorial space as a solely physical one was
elegantly rubbed off our maps.
Curating Lab senpai Kenneth Tay's curator's
tour of 'When you get closer to the heart, you may find cracks' made the
exhibition pop, rendering a trajectory that successfully negotiated practical
constraints visible to us, the seemingly effortless dérive within the
exhibition space revealed as a product of carefully weighted decisions.
Wonderwoman Michelle's thorough introduction to the NUS
Museum and our Public Symposium (complete with packed hall) were rife with
questions and new methodologies, rumblings of our fertile home ground, potent
reminders to go design our own 'deh lee vehs' and generate our own start and
finish lines.
Whilst getting acquainted with the breadth and depth of
Heman's expansive Moderations project, which straddled Spring Workshop in Hong
Kong and Witte de With in Rotterdam, collaboration was foregrounded as
a fundamental premise of production. It is only natural then, that the derivé
(Hong Kong edition) was generously buoyed by Heman's chronic and infectious
fondness for having people do things together.
I leave you to trace or re-trace the paths that were taken
on the Overseas Field Trip in my chicken scrawl of a map, pulsed along as we
were from node to node, each one offering impeccably sophisticated modes of
producing knowledge such that the reverie still holds sway over me.
I'm happy to report in the meantime however, that the eleven
strangers have gotten even stranger over these first two phases, but I'm of the
mind that this bodes well for our 'deh lee vehs' of the future.
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