This session was led by Övül Ö. Durmusoglu, a curator, researcher and writer based in Berlin and Istanbul. She posed the questions:
‘Curating as Resilience’ is based on the urge to re-analyse our developing curatorial positions and sensitivities in today’s almost neutralised critical atmosphere in arts in the face of new populist and right-extremist politics.
If curating can be a form of resilience, then in which ways should the curatorial respond to the present, the creativity of the unexpected in the moment?
How to articulate collective energies inside our individual methodologies towards an aesthetics of togetherness?
An aesthetics that moves beyond representing bodies by embodying critical, poetical, sensual and political in shifting ways.
When there are too many fingers that show us the moon, it may be the time to search and find where our moons actually are.
We were joined by Alessandro Columbano on day two, who led a walking tour of Birmingham responding to how we can be resilient in a cities and the role of architecture and citizens in this. This was followed by a session led by Lucy Lopez, focussing on her research around the formation of publics, and the importance of institutional and personal policies.
Please note this event is part of our Curatorial Curriculum.
Biographies
Övül Ö. Durmusoglu is a curator, researcher and writer based in Berlin and Istanbul. In 2015-16 she has acted as the director/curator of YAMA screen in Istanbul for which she commissioned site specific works by Banu Cennetoglu, Pilvi Takala and Isil Egrikavuk. Alongside she was curatorial and public program advisor for Gülsün Karamustafa’s retrospective exhibition Chronographia at Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin) where she co-edited the artist’s first extensive monograph. Durmusoglu has recently curated What’s The Riddle, Pi Artworks London (2016); In Search of Radical Incomplete #3: Black Hole Hunters, Kunstverein Langenhagen (2016); Future Queer, the 20th year anniversary exhibition for Kaos GL association in Istanbul (2016); In Search of Radical Incomplete #2: A Perfect Animal Within, Stacion Center for Contemporary Art, Prishtina (2015); Place an Image/Place in Image, Museum für Fotografie, Berlin (2014-15) and Tentura and Antitentura, FKSE Studio for Young Artists Association, Budapest (2014).
In the past, she acted as the curator of the festival Sofia Contemporary 2013 titled as Near, Closer, Together: Exercises for a Common Ground and she organized different programs and events as a Goethe Institute fellow at Maybe Education and Public Programs for dOCUMENTA (13). Durmusoglu also co-leads Solar Fantastic, a research, production and publication project between Mexico and Turkey. She has lectured widely in institutions such as Dhaka Art Summit’ 16, Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm), Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (Sao Paulo), 98weeks (Beirut), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), Qalandiya International (Ramallah), Museo del Tlatelolco (Mexico City), Steirischer Herbst (Graz), Akademie der Bildende Kuenste (Vienna) and ESAD (Grenoble). In 2017-18, she will be a guest professor in Nuremberg Art Academy.
As a writer she has contributed to several print and online publications such as Frieze Online, WdW Review, Art Agenda. Durmusoglu is part of the advisory board for Mezosfera, an online journal published by Tranzit Budapest and one of the research partners of Museal Episode, a think tank on the future of art museums from southern perspective organised by Goethe Institute São Paulo. She is one the recipients of Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi for Young Curators awarded by GAMeC Bergamo.
Alessandro Columbano is a Senior Lecturer at the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design. He also co-established and leads the Collaborative Laboratory (Co.LAB) a teaching intiative and organisation within the school that integrates teaching with practice through live projects, staff research/design and external consultancy.
Prior to joining the university, Alessandro worked in architecture and research practices in Manchester and London, with experience in evidence-based design and historical refurbishments. He graduated from the Manchester School of Architecture with a distinction in both postgraduate architecture and MA Urbanism prior to developing his portfolio as an independent artist/designer.
As anviere, a self-identified design guise, Alessandro has developed a portfolio of site-specific installations and artworks commenting on the subversive qualities of our physical environments.
Alessandro brings these characteristics forward to his teaching as an academic and researcher; taking an active role in the discussion of architectural pedagogy, urban theory and the contemporary vernacular. It is applied by engaging in the city’s cultural network through an ongoing process of collaborative practice.
Lucy Lopez is a curator, writer, and editor, currently associate researcher at Eastside Projects, Birmingham, and co-director of Jupiter Woods, London. She is a PhD candidate at Birmingham School of Art, BCU, 2016-19. She was previously research curator at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. She holds an MFA in curating from Goldsmiths, University of London (Distinction). Her research focuses on the organisation of publics, and on the notion of curatorial work as political work. In addition her work is concerned with the methodologies of curatorial and collaborative practice.
Selected projects include: Nicoline van Harskamp, Englishes, BAK, 2016; that a body knows regardless, with Jupiter Woods, Interstate, New York, 2016; Instituting for the Contemporary, BAK, 2016; Resident, Longshore Drift, with Jupiter Woods, Sorbus, Helsinki, 2016; Unstated (or Living Without Approval), co-curated with Maria Hlavajova, BAK, 2016; at continental margins (propositions), Jupiter Woods, 2015; biotic/abiotic, co-curated with Hanna Laura Kaljo, The Gallery Apart, Rome, 2014. Lopez is co-editor together with Nella Aarne and Adam Smythe of The Standard Model: Curatorial Propositions, Hato Press, 2015; co-editor together with Tom Clark and Maria Hlavajova of the critical reader Instituting for the Contemporary, BAK and Valiz, forthcoming 2016; associate editor of Marion von Osten: Once We Were Artists, BAK and Valiz, forthcoming 2016; and image editor of Posthuman Glossary, Bloomsbury Publishing, forthcoming 2016.
In 2014 she co-founded the curatorial platform Jupiter Woods, London, with Hanna Laura Kaljo, Carolina Ongaro, Barnie Page, Cory Scozzari, and Emma Siemens-Adolphe. Jupiter Woods houses an exhibition space, residency program and shared research and studio facility in South East London. In 2016 Jupiter Woods launched a second space in Vienna, and a publishing platform. Jupiter Woods is supported by Arts Council England funding.