Curating With Care

This book presents over 20 authors’ reflections on ‘curating care’ – and presents a call to give curatorial attention to the primacy of care for all life and for more ‘caring curating’ that responds to the social, ecological and political analysis of curatorial caregiving. Social and ecological struggles for a different planetary culture based on care and respect for the dignity of life are reflected in contemporary curatorial practices that explore human and non-human interdependence. The prevalence of themes of care in curating is a response to a dual crisis: the crisis of social and ecological care that characterizes global politics and the professional crisis of curating under the pressures of the increasingly commercialized cultural landscape. Foregrounding that all beings depend on each other for life and survival, this book collects theoretical essays, methodological challenges and case studies from curators working in different global geographies to explore the range of ways in which curatorial labour is rendered as care. Practising curators, activists and theorists situate curatorial labour in the context of today’s general care crisis. This volume answers to the call to more fully understand how their transformative work allows for imagining the future of bodily, social and environmental care and the ethics of interdependency differently.

Critical theoretical essays, case studies, and manifestos offer insights from diverse contexts and geographies of feminist and queer care ethics. What happens when feminist and queer care ethics are put into curating practice? What happens when the notion of care based on the politics of relatedness, interdependence, reciprocity, and response-ability informs the practices of curating? Delivered through critical theoretical essays, practice-informed case studies, and manifestos, the essays in this book offer insights from diverse contexts and geographies. These texts examine a year-long program at Schwules Museum Berlin focused on the perspectives of women, lesbian, inter, non-binary and trans people at Schwules Museum Berlin; the formation of the Queer Trans Intersex People of Colour Narratives Collective in Brighton; Métis Kitchen Table Talks, organized around indigenous knowledge practices in Canada; complex navigations of motherhood and censorship in China; the rethinking of institutions together with First Nations artists in Melbourne; the reanimation of collectivity in immigrant and diasporic contexts in welfare state spaces in Vienna and Stockholm; struggles against Japanese vagina censorship; and an imagined museum of care for Rojava. Strategies include cripping and decolonizing as well as emergent forms of digital caring labor, including curating, hacking, and organizing online drag parties for pandemic times. Contributors Nataša Bachelez-Petrešin, Edna Bonhomme, Birgit Bosold, Imayna Caceres, Pêdra Costa, COVEN BERLIN, Nika Dubrovsky, Lena Fritsch, Vanessa Gravenor, Julia Hartmann, Hitomi Hasegawa, Vera Hofmann, Hana Janečková, k\are: Agnieszka Habraschka and Mia von Matt, Gilly Karjevsky, Elke Krasny, Chantal Küng, Sophie Lingg, Claudia Lomoschitz, Cathy Mattes, Elizaveta Mhaili, Jelena Micić, Carlota Mir, Fabio Otti, Ven Paldano, Nina Prader, Lesia Prokopenko, Patricia J. Reis, Elif Sarican, Rosario Talevi, Amelia Wallin, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, Stefanie Wuschitz.

Museum curators enter the profession with a specialist subject qualification and yet at some point in their career, many curators find themselves in charge of a range of collections outside of their expert knowledge. Interpreting, curating and caring for mixed collections demands of curators a wide range of knowledge and understanding. The Curation and Care of Museum Collections is designed to give curators the fundamental information and confidence they need to manage and care for all of the collections within their responsibility, regardless of their previous training and experience. Comprising two sections – Museum Collections, and Collection Development and Care – the chapters cover archaeology, art, history, military and natural sciences collections, as well as heritage properties. Every chapter in the book is focused on one type of collection, but all chapters in the collection management section contain advice on topics such as organisational philosophy, documentation, legal issues and materials in order to provide a useful and comprehensive guide to managing collections. The collection care section is structured in the same way, considering the issues of storage; display; handling; moving; packing; housekeeping; health and safety; emergency preparedness; and pest, pollution, environmental, light and vibration management. The contributors to this book are experienced museum professionals, each with their own specialism and a deep understanding of what it means to work in the context of mixed collections. Providing a highly practical guide, The Curation and Care of Museum Collections is essential reading for curators working in all types of museums, galleries and heritage sites, and for students of museology courses around the world.

Urban Curating explores the interconnectedness of economy, ecology, and labor in urban history as well as practices of remembrance. Drawing on the author's work as an urban curator, the focus is on caring repair, refusal, and resistance--fighting the spatialization of injustice by building feminist solidarities and emancipatory imaginaries.

"This book offers a systematic overview of the responses made by museums and other repositories in the UK to the ownership, care, storage, display and interpretation of human remains." -- back cover.

Drawing on his own experiences and inspirations - from staging his first exhibition in his tiny Zurich kitchen in 1986 to encounters and conversations with artists, exhibition makers and thinkers alive and dead - Hans Ulrich Obrist's Ways of Curating looks to inspire all those engaged in the creation of culture. Moving from meetings with the artists who have inspired him (including Gerhard Richter and Gilbert and George) to the creation of the first public museums in the 18th century, recounting the practice of inspirational figures such as Diaghilev and Walter Hopps, skipping between exhibitions (his own and others), continents and centuries, Ways of Curating argues that curation is far from a static practice. Driven by curiosity, at its best it allows us to create the future.

Curating in a Time of Ecological Crisis reaffirms the relevance and impactful role of art, revealing how contemporary art exhibitions can capture the zeitgeist and advance new and collaborative approaches to a more sustainable inhabitation of Earth. The book is largely focused on biennales, which it argues are the contemporary exhibition models with the greatest capacity to offer new perspectives and propose alternative ways of connecting with our social and natural environments. Felicity Fenner demonstrates this by showing how curators of these high-profile exhibitions are responding in creative and engaging ways to the issues that preoccupy artists and society more broadly, of which the ecological crisis is paramount. Drawing on case studies from different parts of the world, the author reveals how biennales can make a constructive contribution to debates and attitudes around climate change, and how the role of the curator has evolved to re-embrace a duty of care not just to art but to the natural world as well. Curating in a Time of Ecological Crisis investigates how large-scale exhibitions of contemporary international art can become agents of change. As such, the book will be essential reading for scholars, students, and practitioners with an interest in exhibitions, curating, contemporary art, and environmental sustainability.

The definitive reference text on curation both inside and outside the museum A Companion to Curation is the first collection of its kind, assembling the knowledge and experience of prominent curators, artists, art historians, scholars, and theorists in one comprehensive volume. Part of the Blackwell Companion series, this much-needed book provides up-to-date information and valuable insights on the field of curatorial studies and curation in the visual arts. Accessible and engaging chapters cover diverse, contemporary methods of curation, its origin and history, current and emerging approaches within the profession, and more. This timely publication fills a significant gap in literature on the role of the curator, the art and science of curating, and the historical arc of the field from the 17th century to the present. The Companion explores topics such as global developments in contemporary indigenous art, Asian and Chinese art since the 1980s, feminist and queer feminist curatorial practices, and new curatorial strategies beyond the museum. This unique volume: Offers readers a wide range of perspectives on curating in both theory and practice Includes coverage of curation outside of the Eurocentric and Anglosphere art worlds Presents clear and comprehensible information valuable for specialists and novices alike Discusses the movements, models, people and politics of curating Provides guidance on curating in a globalized world Broad in scope and detailed in content, A Companion to Curation is an essential text for professionals engaged in varied forms of curation, teachers and students of museum studies, and readers interested in the workings of the art world, museums, benefactors, and curators.

Critical theoretical essays, case studies, and manifestos offer insights from diverse contexts and geographies of feminist and queer care ethics. What happens when feminist and queer care ethics are put into curating practice? What happens when the notion of care based on the politics of relatedness, interdependence, reciprocity, and response-ability informs the practices of curating? Delivered through critical theoretical essays, practice-informed case studies, and manifestos, the essays in this book offer insights from diverse contexts and geographies. These texts examine a year-long program at Schwules Museum Berlin focused on the perspectives of women, lesbian, inter, non-binary and trans people at Schwules Museum Berlin; the formation of the Queer Trans Intersex People of Colour Narratives Collective in Brighton; Métis Kitchen Table Talks, organized around indigenous knowledge practices in Canada; complex navigations of motherhood and censorship in China; the rethinking of institutions together with First Nations artists in Melbourne; the reanimation of collectivity in immigrant and diasporic contexts in welfare state spaces in Vienna and Stockholm; struggles against Japanese vagina censorship; and an imagined museum of care for Rojava. Strategies include cripping and decolonizing as well as emergent forms of digital caring labor, including curating, hacking, and organizing online drag parties for pandemic times. Contributors Nataša Bachelez-Petrešin, Edna Bonhomme, Birgit Bosold, Imayna Caceres, Pêdra Costa, COVEN BERLIN, Nika Dubrovsky, Lena Fritsch, Vanessa Gravenor, Julia Hartmann, Hitomi Hasegawa, Vera Hofmann, Hana Janečková, k\are: Agnieszka Habraschka and Mia von Matt, Gilly Karjevsky, Elke Krasny, Chantal Küng, Sophie Lingg, Claudia Lomoschitz, Cathy Mattes, Elizaveta Mhaili, Jelena Micić, Carlota Mir, Fabio Otti, Ven Paldano, Nina Prader, Lesia Prokopenko, Patricia J. Reis, Elif Sarican, Rosario Talevi, Amelia Wallin, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, Stefanie Wuschitz.

'A terrific and important book . . . it's a great, fresh take on how the 21st century is transforming the way we select everything from food to music' David Bodanis, author of E=MC2 In the past two years humanity has produced more data than the rest of human history combined. We carry a library of data in our pockets, accessible at any second. We have more information and more goods at our disposal than we know what to do with. There is no longer any competitive advantage in creating more information. Today, value lies in curation: selecting, finding and cutting down to show what really matters. Curation reveals how a little-used word from the world of museums became a crucial and at times controversial strategy for the twenty-first century. Today's most successful companies - Apple, Netflix, Amazon - have used curation to power their growth, by offering customers more tailored and appropriate choices. Curation answers the question of how we can live and prosper in an age of information overload. In the context of excess, it is not only a sound business strategy, but a way to make sense of the world.