Shanghai Curators Lab to be hosted from November
The lead professors for the program are Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (L), the Director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, and Yongwoo Lee, professor of SAFA at Shanghai University.
The Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University has launched their Shanghai Curators Lab program.
The intensive and challenging residence program for young curators will be hosted from November 5 to December 5.
It will be an open forum for experimental and critical discussion on the ecology of curatorial practices and intercultural platforms in the period of rapid transformation.
According to Wang Dawei, principal of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University, they hope to fill the void in the cultivation of professional curators in domestic colleges.
SCL will be a regular long-term program of the academy to nurture young curators with "international visions." The academy will also launch the curation department, the first of its kind in China, in the near future.
In collaboration with Shanghai Biennale and Shanghai International Art City Research Institute, the subjects and programs of the SCL will include exhibition-making of contemporary hybrid culture and art, the ecosystem of disciplines and expertise, and technological advancement.
The SCL will also look at the potential for expanding the role of curators within the culture of multidisciplinary boundaries of art, industry, big data, new forms of media and politics.
The lead professors for the SCL are Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the Director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, and Yongwoo Lee, professor of SAFA at Shanghai University. The program will also invite 15 lecturers who are influential figures in the fields of art, culture and education to share their expertise.
“Nowadays the question is not how to produce, but how to select,” said Professor Lee. “The young curators will have a chance to rethink the nature of curation.”
The participating curators will be divided into four different research groups to present imaginative projects, either as exhibitions or diversified performative events, at the end of the program.
The outcome and researched short-term projects produced by the participants during their stay in SCL will be open to the public and the arts community in Shanghai and China.
The curators will also experience unique production processes of the 12th Shanghai Biennale with its curators and participating artists during the preparation period.
Applicants wishing to participate should email their self-introduction letter, resume, and motivation to wangliyin@shu.edu.cn by September 16. Applications are accepted through email only, and a maximum of 22 curators will be selected.
