RECAP | Curatorial Roundtable 03 | A Moveable Feast: Itinerancy and Curatorial Practice

[From left] Farah Wardani, Vera Mey and Ahmad Mashadi.

The establishment of international curatorial networks follows the growing proliferation of curatorial residencies around the world. For some, this has helped encourage horizontal movements across the so-called global south by curators in their practice and research. Curatorial Roundtable 03 explored the issues and potentials of itinerancy in curatorial practice from the perspective of curators based around the region. This discussion brought together Farah Wardani, director of the Indonesian Visual Art Archive, and Vera Mey, curator of residencies at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore. The talk was moderated by Ahmad Mashadi, Head of NUS Museum.

About the moderator
Ahmad Mashadi is currently the Head of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum. Before joining the NUS Museum, Ahmad served as Senior Curator at the Singapore Art Museum focusing on Southeast Asian Art. Recent exhibitions curated include Archiving Apin (2013) and Camping and Tramping through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya (2011).

About the speakers

Vera Mey is a curator at the Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (CCA), a research centre of Nanyang Technological University. She was Assistant Director of AUT University’s ST PAUL St Gallery in Auckland, New Zealand from 2011 - early 2014 where she also convened the AUT University Master of Arts Management Curatorial Strategy program. For 2013, Vera was curator in residence at Arts Initiative Tokyo, Japan. Last December with Erin Gleeson, Sa Sa Bassac, Phnom Penh she curated the non-productive nomadic residency FIELDS: an itinerant inquiry across the Kingdom of Cambodia (2013). This involved a group of 17 artists, curators, and researchers traveling together for 20 days questioning the intersection between contemporaneity, archaeology and the politics of memory rooted in mutual unknowing within the context of contemporary Cambodia.  She completed her Masters in Museum & Heritage Studies from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2010) and most recently was a participant on the 8th Berlin Biennial Young Curators Workshop (2014). 

Farah Wardani completed her MA in Art History (20th Century) from the Department of Historical & Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, London, UK, in 2001. She has been active as a teacher, researcher, writer, curator and art organizer since 2001 in her home country, Indonesia. She is the co-author of a book titled Indonesian Women Artists: The Curtain Opens (Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation, 2007). Her recent and ongoing projects include being the consulting curator for the exhibition Indonesian Eye: Fantasies & Realities at Saatchi Gallery, London, 2011; and Artistic Director for Biennale Jogja XII 2013. From 2007 until present she positions as the executive director of Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, with works include the IVAA Digital Archive http://archive.ivaa-online.org/, the first digital archive of contemporary art in the country.

Curatorial Roundtable 03 | in photos

 

Curatorial Roundtable 03 | in video

Curatorial Roundtable 03 | A Moveable Feast: Itinerancy and Curatorial Practice from nusmuseum on Vimeo.

Curatorial Roundtable 03 | A Moveable Feast: Itinerancy and Curatorial Practice

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Date: 9 October 2014, Thursday  
Time: 7.00 - 9.00pm
Venue: Possibility Room, Level 5, National Library Building

Free admission with registration.
To register, please email museum@nus.edu.sg or call 6516 8817.

Moderator:
Ahmad Mashadi (NUS Museum)

Speakers:
Vera Mey (Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore)
Farah Wardani (Indonesian Visual Art Archive)

The establishment of international curatorial networks follows the growing proliferation of curatorial residencies around the world. For some, this has helped encourage horizontal movements across the so-called global south by curators in their practice and research. This session aims to explore the issues and potentials of itinerancy in curatorial practice from the perspective of curators based around the region.

About the Curatorial Roundtable Series
Presented in conjunction with Curating Lab 2014, the Curatorial Roundtable public talk series gathers together curators and artists working across different fields of research and engagement, to discuss the boundaries of curatorial practice. Amidst the increasing attention paid to the role of the curator, this series aims to probe further into the limits of curatorial practice. Although presented primarily for the participants of Curating Lab 2014, the Curatorial Roundtable is an opportunity to bridge the gap between the curator and the audience, providing opportunities for interaction and stimulating discussions on curatorial practices and processes.

post.scripting | An Interview with Vera Mey of the CCA

About post.scripting
post.scripting is a blog series that transposes the question from Curating Lab’s Public Symposium “Where Does an Exhibition Begin and End?” to an online platform. It asks, “Where Does a Conversation Begin and End?”. It seeks to expand upon questions around curation and art brought up during the Public Symposium, examining the ideas behind words and the philosophies beyond thoughts.

About "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?"
Part of the Curatorial-Intensive, the public symposium "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?" presented Curating Lab 2014 participants with an opportunity to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. Building on lectures and workshops with facilitators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna from Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes as well as artist, curator and writer Heman Chong, participants engaged with the symposium by live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising approaches such as blogging to document and report the day for those not physically present.

In response, participants Luca Lum, Chua Ying Qing and Raksha Mahtani conceived the blog series,  post.scripting, featuring in-depth interviews with the artists and curators involved in the symposium.

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Source: Vera Mey

Vera Mey is the Curator (Artists in Residence) at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) and a mentor for Curating Lab 2014. During the Public Symposium, she, together with Anca Rujoiu, talked about the two-day curatorial intervention The Disappearance. The discussion was accompanied by a re-staging of Shubigi Rao's lecture-performance Visual Snow.

In this interview, Vera talks more about The Disappearance, her curatorial praxes, where she sees the CCA in local, regional, and global art contexts, as well as the CCA’s recent collaboration with Post-Museum at Gillman Barracks. She also highlights the importance for institutions to constantly respond to their environments, explore new territories, and expand their boundaries.