PROGRAM

The program of the symposium* invites different ways of delving into the topic of the educational u-turn and production of knowledge in contemporary culture. You are welcome to study the texts of six researchers of educational practices in art and culture (content in Russian only); to listen to the voice messages of Françoise Vergès, Nora Sternfeld, Pablo Helguera and Laurence Rassel (with the possibility to comment and discuss what you hear with the authors) and to immerse yourself in reading the correspondence between Carolina Rito, Laurence Rassel, Felicity Allen and Françoise Vergès and another one between Dmitry Vilensky, Pablo Helguera, Suzana Milevska and Bernadette Lynch.

Participants of the symposium*

curatorial forum

/

rus

in russian only

rus

ГМИИ им. А.С. Пушкина и ГЦСИ в Санкт-Петербурге при поддержке «Фонда поддержки инноваций и молодежных инициатив Санкт-Петербурга» в рамках 2-го Кураторского форума © Санкт-Петербург 2020

Felicity Allen

As an artist, Felicity Allen has 40 years experience of combining studio, social and institutional practices, from which she has developed the concept of an artist's Disoeuvre, as opposed to the more widely recognised oeuvre which resides in privilege and exclusivity. Education is integral as a methodology in her work.
Allen has published a number of articles, mainly relating to gallery education, including (most recently) 'Erasure, Transformation and the Politics of Pedagogy' and 'Re-visiting, Re-situating Gallery Education', and compiled the Documents of Contemporary Art book Education (Whitechapel/MIT, 2011).
She is a Trustee of Third Text and a member of the Write Read Write group; was a founder member (1978) of what became the Women's Art Library (now a vibrant archive curated by Althea Greenan); the founding director (1991) of Engage (the National Association for Gallery Education) and founding editor of the print journal engage; and a former Head of Interpretation & Education (2003−10) at Tate.

Françoise Vergès

Grew up in the Reunion Island before moving to Algiers and then settling in Paris in the mid-1970s, where she devoted herself to anti-racist and feminist activism. In 1983, she moved to the United States where she worked as a cleaning lady before resuming her studies in 1987 at San Diego State University where she obtained a double degree summa cum laude. Accepted at Berkeley University, she obtained her doctorate in Political Theory in 1995. Her thesis, "Monsters and Revolutionaries. Colonial Family Romance and Métissage", is published by Duke University Press. She has taught at Sussex University, Goldsmiths College and was Visiting Professor at North American universities. In 2014, she created the Global South (s) Chair at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Foundation, Paris, which she held until 2018. She was president of the Committee for the Memory and History of Slavery from 2009 to 2012. She has published books and articles on the memory of slavery, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, coloniality, the museum, the processes of creolization and decolonial feminism.

Dmitry Vilensky

Born in Leningrad in 1964 is an artist, educator and cultural environmentalist with no art degrees. He elicits situations and relationships. No one knows what he is up to right now: perhaps he is editing a new issue of Chto Delat's newspaper, or maybe administering the Chto Delat Mutual Aid Fund, or editing a film, or talking with the participants of the School of Engaged Art, or making a set for a new play, or sitting in the assembly at Rosa's House of Culture editing presentation for another conference… Most likely, he is doing all this and dozens of other activities at the same time, surrounded by various comradely compositions of bodies and minds in his hometown of Saint Petersburg, at Zoom and in many other places around the world.

Dora García

An artist who lives and works in Barcelona and Oslo. She currently teaches at Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway and Le Fresnoy, France. She has represented Spain at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and was present again in the Venice Biennale 2013. She took part in the 56th Venice International Art Exhibition, dOCUMENTA (13) and other international events such as Münster Sculpture Projects in 2007, Sydney Biennale 2008 and Sao Paulo Biennale 2010. Her work is largely performative and deals with issues related to community and individuality in contemporary society, exploring the political potential of marginal positions, paying homage to eccentric characters and antiheroes. These eccentric characters have often been the center of her film projects, such as The Deviant Majority (2010), The Joycean Society (2013) and Segunda Vez (2018).

Alexander Ivanov

Alexander Ivanov is a cultural worker, educator, and curator, who have initiated artistic, pedagogical, and community projects. He is the curator of the Perspektivy Art Studio at the Psycho-Neurological Internat № 3 in Peterhof, Russia. His sphere of professional interest are critical and institutional pedagogies, aesthetics of inclusion, the educational turn in art, and disability studies. His current curatorial practice focuses on the study of contemporary Russian "inclusiveness" as a territory of collision of various interests that promote (or resist) the emergence of new forms of aesthetics and social relations within the art world and beyond. He collaborated with a number of Russian and international institutions (the 10th edition of Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Hermitage Youth Educational Centre, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, National Center of Contemporary Art, CEC ArtsLink, Ў Gallery in Minsk, etc.). He is the co-editor (with Joana Monbaron, Marina Gržinić, Aneta Stojnić) of the anthology "Tracings out of thin air: establishing oppositional practices and collaborative communities in art and culture" (2018).

Bernadette Lynch

PhD, a writer, researcher and museum professional with thirty years' experience in senior management in UK and Canadian museums. Formerly Deputy Director at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, she has an international reputation for ethical, innovative participatory practice. Her influential research and consultancy specialises in critical public engagement and participation with diverse communities and in leading museum transformation and change. She publishes widely on participatory democracy in museums, and on 'useful museum' practice. She is Honorary Research Associate, University College London. She continues working on decolonisation; power; democracy; debate; conflict; contested collections; difficult subject matter and activism in museums.

Suzana Milevska

Is an art historian, visual culture theorist and curator based in Skopje, North Macedonia. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College London (2006) and was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Library of Congress (2004). In 2012, Milevska won the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory and later (in 2013) was appointed the first Endowed Professor of Central and South Eastern European Art Histories (2013−2015, Academy of Fine Art Vienna). Milevska initiated numerous curatorial and research projects, such as Call the Witness, a project focusing on contemporary Roma artists (within the framework of the Roma Pavilion, 54 Venice Biennial, 2011).

Her theoretical research interests include postcolonial and feminist critique of representational regimes of hegemonic power and decolonisation of contentious cultural heritages. Her curatorial interests focus on women artists' research projects, collaborative and participatory art practices and community-based research projects in marginalized communities.

Maria Mkrtycheva

Curator of public and education programs. From 2011 till 2017 worked at the Education department of the V-A-C Foundation and was in charge of the project "Moscow Curatorial Summer School". In 2018−2019 was curator of a public program aimed at citizens of Vyksa (within the framework of ArtOvrag festival). Co-curator of the opening program for Center for Family History in Tula. Took a role of Shadow Curator CCA Glasgow Public Engagement division. Interested in social turn in contemporary art and the role of the viewer, knowledge production and dissemination.

Laurence Rassel

Is a cultural worker who can act as curator, teacher, organizer. She is currently based in Brussels, where she works as a Director of erg (école de recherche graphique — école supérieure des arts). From 2008 to 2015 she was Director of Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, an institution created in 1984 by the artist Antoni Tàpies to promote the study and knowledge of modern and contemporary art. From 1997 to 2008, Rassel was a founding member of Constant, a non-profit association and interdisciplinary arts-lab based and active in Brussels in the fields of art, media and technology. The inspirations for Rassel's models for work processes come from copyleft and free software culture, feminism and what she calls "institutional psychotherapy".

Carolina Rito

Is Professor of Creative Practice Research, at the Research Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities (CAMC), at Coventry University; and leads on the centre's research strand Critical Practices. She is a researcher and curator whose work explores 'the curatorial' as an investigative practice, expanding practice- based research in the fields of curating, visual arts, visual cultures and cultural studies. Rito is Executive Board Member of the Midlands Higher Education & Culture Forum; Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC), Universidade NOVA de Lisboa; Founding Editor of The Contemporary Journal; and Chair for the Collaborative Research Working Group for the MHECF. From 2017 to 2019, she was Head of Public Programmes and Research at Nottingham Contemporary, leading the institution's research strategy with Nottingham Trent University and University of Nottingham. She holds a PhD in Curatorial/Knowledge from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she taught from 2014 to 2016. She lectures internationally and her texts are published in many international journals. Recently, Rito co-edited: Institution as Praxis — New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research (Sternberg, 2020)

Pablo Helguera

Born in Mexico City, 1971, is a New York based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art and performance. Helguera's work incorporates pedagogy, sociology and theater and literary strategies. His project, "The School of Panamerican Unrest", a nomadic think- tank that physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, making 40 stops in between and covering almost 20,000 miles. Helguera has worked since 1991 in a variety of contemporary art museums, most recently as head of public programs at the Education department of the Guggenheim Museum (1998−2005) and as Director of Adult and Academic programs at the Museum of Modern Art (2007−2020) in New York. In 2010 he was appointed pedagogical curator of the 8th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which took place in 2011. In 2017 received a mid-career retrospective at La Colección Jumex, titled Dramatis Personae. In 2020 he will be presenting an artist-curated exhibition at the RISD Museum, as part of its Riding the Icebox series. He is currently working on a new series of performative lectures and on a series of workshops as art works to be presented in Mexico, Minneapolis, Buenos Aires, St. Petersburg and other cities.

Nadezhda Chernyakevich

Is a labor theorist and practitioner. Graduate of the Curatorial Studies program at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University. Used to be a lecturer, curator and coordinator of educational projects in art institutions such as the Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO, the North-West Branch of the NCCA, the State Hermitage Youth Educational Center, the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Rodchenko Art School online and the Faculty of Contemporary Art at the online school "Sreda obuchenia". Professional interests include feminist writing, the emancipatory potential of educational practices, humor as a form of resistance, political magic, entanglement. Her texts were published on the syg. ma and aroundart platforms.

Nora Sternfeld

Is an art educator and curator. She is professor for art education at the HFBK Hamburg. From 2018 to 2020 she was documenta professor at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. From 2012 to 2018 she was Professor of Curating and Mediating Art at Aalto University in Helsinki. In addition, she is co-director of the /ecm — Master Programme for Exhibition Theory and Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, in the core team of schnittpunkt. ausstellungstheorie & praxis, co-founder and part of trafo. K, Office for Education, Art and Critical Knowledge Production (Vienna) and since 2011 part of freethought, Platform for Research, Education and Production (London). In this context she was also one of the artistic directors of the Bergen Assembly 2016 and is 2020 BAK Fellow, basis voor actuele kunst (Utrecht). She publishes on contemporary art, educational theory, exhibitions, historical politics and anti- racism.

Maria Sarycheva

Maria Sarycheva is an independent curator and educator based in Moscow (b. Ufa, Russia), currently hold the position as an Accessibility Program Coordinator at State Tretyakov gallery (Moscow, Russia). Since 2015 she is also co-editor of an independent online self-organised art magazine aroundart.org. In 2014−2016 she headed the department of Inclusion and Access at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow, Russia), where she initiated the foundation of the first educational programs available to visitors with different forms of disability. Besides individual curatorial practice (Commute, 2015; Estimated Waiting Time, 2019), she is looking forward towards different form of collectivity and participatory strategies (Co-thinkers, 2016; Escapism.Training Program together with Anna Remesova, 2018; Kaskad Deaf teens team together with Vlad Kolesnikov, 2019−2020; Stories that never were together with Alena Levina, 2019−2020). Her main research interests dedicated to the topic of care, public space, disability rights, queer and feminist strategies. Besides her institutional position, where she is responsible for sustainable development of Inclusion and Access program at State Tretyakov gallery, she is currently is busy with long term curatorial practice (League of Tenders with Elena Ischenko, since 2018 till now; f99: unspecifed mental disorder, since 2019 — ongoing).