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Anna Mikaela Ekstrand < Back Which Side Have You Chosen? A Response to Bruno Latour [1] Anna Mikaela Ekstrand Left: Protesters kneel in front of New York City Police Department Officers as they violate curfew, Plaza Hotel, 59th Street, New York City, June 3, 2020. AP. Right: From left, ex-police officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao. All have been charged in the on-duty killing of George Floyd. AP. In the early days of the Corona crisis, I strongly felt the intensity of the online art world – viewing rooms, podcasts, article series, and more launching during the first week of quarantine. The most successful initiative engaging both the art world and mainstream audiences in practices of deep looking, but more importantly revising and restaging, was the Getty Challenge with participants across the world recreating artworks. [2] Etty Yaniv, an independent publisher, has interviewed over 125 artists on how they are coping during Corona times – some of them are published on my platform Cultbytes. [3] The Immigrant Artist Biennial, a project that I am working with, has shifted programming online hosting studio visits on IGLive, and on Zoom, a roundtable on Anti-Asian Racism and an immigration law clinic. [4] The online sphere quickly became a place for reflection and communal support but also a more rigorous competition for visibility, one that artists, many who already work with self-promotion to manage their careers, excelled in. In “What protective measures can you think of so we don’t go back to the pre-crisis production model?” [5] Bruno Latour, a French philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist urges his readers to sacrifice their opinions to rely on descriptions and research to devise systemic solutions to stifle climate change through his call-to-reflect questionnaire. On March 12th I began writing a response to Latour’s text: [6] In America, COVID-19 has provided further magnification and broadcast of racial divides, which has been a hot topic with push back against rampant police violence in recent years, but also class divides – which in the seat of capitalism is not regularly a hot topic. Major companies, like Amazon, are experiencing strikes by their workers, unrelated to unions. In times of crisis, the needs of the people are magnified. Latour and I, and many others, anticipated a shift. We just could not put our finger on what it would be. Before the four now ex-police officers, Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Keung, brutally murdered George Floyd by restraining him, preventing onlookers from intervening, and, the former, pressing a knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds during which time he called-out for his mother and uttered the words “I can’t breath.” [7] Before the arrests of Gregory and Travis McMichael’s some two months after they fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery, a black man out for a jog. Before these events that would trigger yet another wave of protests against state sanctioned violence against people of color many of us busied ourselves with increased levels of self-care, care for others, and issues of personal finance, while in confinement. Countrywide stay-at-home orders provoked an increased reliance and engagement with government entities, local and state politicians, healthcare providers, or within the American context, insurance providers (or a distancing from them as it were to not override hospitals), Department of Health (for information), and the Department of Labor (to register unemployment) also made these entities more visible in our everyday life. Little did we know that this work would prepare us and offer us tools to carry out the revolution. In America, the Black Lives Matter movement has urged citizens to look beyond their own experiences to see facts; there is rampant systemic racism that violates black people in this country every day. Activist groups, protestors, influencers, democrats and republicans, politicians – basically people of all races and walks of life, many who normally would not have the time or interest, are all chiming in in solidarity for change. In the art world, influencers, galleries, institutions and the media are highlighting black artists, and some have quickly created grants and financial support for arts education for black people. Anti-racist resources are being widely shared to help institutions shift away from tokenizing to truly become more inclusive. [8] Latour’s first question is ‘What are some suspended activities that you would like to see not coming back?’ In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, my answer is: The Police. His second question is why? My answer is: Shifting funding from the police, a racially biased and broken system and the industrial prison complex to education, housing, healthcare and community engagement would help the black population, POC, LGBT community – groups that endure frequent policing aka systemic harassment, murder, and disenfranchising through mass incarceration. Dismantle lobby groups like ALEC that support and are largely funded by companies that profit from mass incarceration. Re-integrate ex-convicts into society by allowing convicts to start and complete degrees and work for minimum wage when they are incarcerated. Create a probation system that supports instead of restrains, and give ex-cons their democratic rights back, the right to vote. The Prison Policy Initiative estimates an annual cost of $181bn for mass incarceration in America. [9] Defunding the police and dismantling the industrial prison complex will leave many out of work. As my response to Latour’s third question: [10] superfluous prison guards, police, parole and probation officers who truly care about reform, rehabilitation and community building can be fast tracked into becoming social workers and educators. The rest can be put on Unemployment Insurance (or how about Revolution Unemployment Assistance? RUA) until they find work in other industries. Maybe Elon Musk ( not Claire Denis) can find a way for them to explore space? [11] The companies that profit from convicts and their families can be allocated federal and state contracts to ideate, create and lobby for environmentally sustainable law-changes (perhaps taxing car and oil production, companies with high carbon footprints, or America’s wealthiest 1%) or just continue selling their goods to other consumers, however, with a mandate to employ at least 70% ex-cons. If they fail or are unwilling, they too can be put on assistance until they find work in other industries. I believe that the longevity of the current wave of the Black Lives Matter movement has been reliant on the government indirectly funding its supporters and participants. It was fueled by an increased proximity to government entities and officials moderated by the Corona crisis in addition to our lived experiences enduring personal sacrifice to curtail the crisis. The police murders of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile and Breonna Taylor [12] have provoked countrywide protests and actions of solidarity, however, none as encompassing as now. With the suspension of local businesses, the ‘closure’ of states and work stop orders, many people are out of work and are eligible to receive between 21 to 39 weeks of benefits. [13] 40 million Americans are currently enrolled in these financial assistance programs. Without a job to go to and financial assistance (stimulus checks at the very least), it is easier to continue organizing against and protesting the American governments repression of its people to provoke real change. [14] Similarly, the wide-spread protest movements, Fridays for Future (FFF), Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate, essentially carved out protected time during the school day for protests to occur as children, protected by various laws stating that they must go to school, were let back into school on Monday after returning from protesting on Friday. In March, America’s market economy became overhauled by federal and state sanctioned regulations to alleviate the healthcare system to tackle the virus outbreak bringing the need to remedy mass unemployment and aiding struggling corporations. Mayors and governors crowded the stage many addressing their constituents directly on a daily basis. Andrew Cuomo’s daily press briefing was broadcasted on most local TV channels across the country. When Cuomo pleads for New Yorker’s to stay at home and social distance, even offering through the NYC Health Department tips for safer sex during COVID-19 [15] and addressing intimate and personal matters, it is not surprising that people feel empowered to speak directly to politicians to advocate for and vocalize defunding a police force that is killing their friends, family and neighbors. Lastly, regulations, fear of infection, death and the uncertainty of what will happen in the world has impacted people. Social media platforms offer spaces to process, discuss, and engage with the Corona crisis and our current situations both through information sharing, critique, humor, and holding others responsible for their actions. The crisis has forced many to (re)learn and spend more time communicating and broadcasting. According to the New York Times, we are ‘internet-ing’ differently and using a wider range of apps and services [16] – Zoom usage climbed from 10 million daily meeting participants in December to 300 million in April. [17] We are also spending more time on our immediate environment, local neighborhood and families. We have all become better at communicating online – thus more people are participating in digital forms of protest to broadcast, negotiate and further the Black Lives Matter movement. Simply put, in the past months, we have moved from recreating our favorite art works to fend off weary in the confinement of our homes to collectively with love, in outrage, despair, hope, and solidarity protest racism and police brutality and reimagine the society we live in; the Black Lives Matter movement has brought us out of our homes back into the streets [18] and, hopefully, to the voting polls. Latour’s appeal to reconsider how we can use this slowdown of capitalism to renegotiate existing production models to better protect our environment is valid. Yet, environmental policy is more mature and developed than anti-racist policy. The former is institutionalized, carried out by a complex system of national and international bi- and multilateral agencies and partnerships pressurized by activists, like Greta Thunberg. We must make sure that the Black Lives Matter movement in America and anti-racist policy across the world continues to develop – like climate change, this is an issue that belongs to us all. We must stay the course. Anna Mikaela Ekstrand is a Swedish/Guyanese independent curator based in New York City. [1] Latour, Bruno. Translated by Stephen Muecke. What protective measures can you think of so we don’t go back to the pre-crisis production model?, 2020. http://www.bruno-latour.fr/node/853.html , accessed June 22, 2020. [2] https://www.buzzfeed.com/louisekhong/getty-museum-challenge-recreate-artwork , accessed June 22, 2020. [3] “Artists on Coping” published on artspiel.org and cultbytes.com . [4] “Artists Respond to Anti-Asian Racism, Xenophobia, and Immigrant-Bashing in the Time of COVID-19,” April 22, 2020, co-hosted by EFA Project and The Immigrant Artist Biennial and “Visual Artists’ Immigration Clinic,” April 23, 2020, co-hosted by the Center for Art Law, EFA Project Space, and The Immigrant Artist Biennial. [5] See footnote 1. [6] As one of their curatorial residents I was asked by WCSCD? to participate. https://old.wcscd.com/index.php/2020/05/31/series-of-texts-developed-by-participants-of-wcscd-2020-2021-program-as-a-response-to-bruno-latour-text-what-protective-measures-can-you-think-of-so-we-dont-go-back-to-the-pre-crisis-producti/ , accessed June 22, 2020. [7] On July 14, 2014, Eric Garner said the same words under duress before he was killed by David Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department officer, who had put him in a chokehold (despite them being banned in the NYPD since 1993). So, what happened to Pantaleo? In 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice declined to bring criminal charges against the officer who had been relegated to desk duty and after disciplinary hearings in an administrative judge recommended that he be fired, which he was on August 19, 2019, five years later after the murder. The system is broken. [8] One example is “Racism in the Arts” created by @rhearhea__ and @paintherlex, two Chicago based artists https://www.instagram.com/p/CBTZeXClSJS/ , accessed on June 23, 2020. [9] PPI includes the cost of operating prisons, jails, parole, and probation, as estimated by the Bureau of Statistics to $81bn — in addition to policing and court costs, and costs paid by families to support incarcerated loved ones. Least we not forget the private entities like bail bond companies, which collect $1.4 billion in nonrefundable fees from defendants and their families; phone companies that charge families up to $24.95 for a 15-minute phone call; and commissary vendors that bring in $1.6 billion a year and the companies that use prisoners as low wage workers (sometimes $0.13-$4/hour) to produce goods “Made in America.” https://eji.org/news/mass-incarceration-costs-182-billion-annually/ , accessed June 22, 2020. [10] “Question 3: What kinds of measures do you advocate so that workers/employees/agents/entrepreneurs, who can no longer continue in the activities that you have eliminated, are able to facilitate the transition to other activities?” [11] High Life (2018), directed by Claire Denis, is set in a dystopian future where convicts are involuntarily sent to explore deep space in space ships designed by the Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. In 2018, with more idealism, Elon Musk launched Enoch, a satellite by the Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan, into space. The artwork is a 24-karat gold urn featuring a bust of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first African-American NASA-trained astronaut. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/arts/design/spacex-enoch-tavares-strachan.html , accessed June 22, 2020. [12] The list goes on. The police killed 1,098 people in America in 2019. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ , accessed on June 22, 2020. [13] Number of weeks varies by state. https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/policy-basics-how-many-weeks-of-unemployment-compensation-are-available , accessed on June 18, 2020. [14] Realizing that state and government had money in their coffers to sustain monetary assistance to curtail a financial crisis but not to help struggling communities with education and healthcare is also a provocation. [15] We have decades of work by the HIV/AIDS activists to thank for its frank, clear, and non-judgmental tone. No rimming please. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-sex-guidance.pdf , accessed June 22, 2020. [16] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/07/technology/coronavirus-internet-use.html , accessed June 22, 2020. [17] https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/30/21242421/zoom-300-million-users-incorrect-meeting-participants-statement , accessed on June 22, 2020. [18] Police across America have arrested and detained peaceful protestors and members of the press. As an effort to curtail looting, but let’s be real, in an effort to assuage protests, New York City implemented a city-wide curfew during the first week of June. In our fifth week of protesting the slogan Whose Streets! Our Streets! still rings loud. https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights/ , accessed June 22, 2020. Previous Next

Alumni 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2022 Alumni Adelina Luft is an unaffiliated curator whose practice emerged and developed in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) along decolonial lines of thought and modes of working that favor collaboration, processes and interdisciplinarity. Her curatorial projects address trans-local affinities, shared histories, human/nonhuman relations with land, migration and identity. In 2021 she moved to Bucharest where she continues to initiate interdisciplinary and socially-engaged art projects. She collaborates with tranzit.Bucuresti and is a member of the curatorial team for Biennale Jogja Equator 2023, where she previously took on roles as assistant curator in 2017 and residency manager in 2015. Adelina holds a BA from the National University of Political Studies in Bucharest and a MA in Visual Art Studies from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. She often contributes with translations and texts about Indonesian art, more recently for the book A History of Photography in Indonesia: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age published by Amsterdam University Press and Afterhours Jakarta. She participated in several curatorial programs: Kuandu Museum of Fine Art in Taipei (2018), ODD in Bucharest (2018), and Curator’s Agenda in Vienna (2016). Anastasia Albokrinova has an education in design and a post-graduate in urban research at Strelka Institute (Moscow). While being a student she and her friends established a self-organisation ‘XI komnat’ which was a studio, exhibition and event space from 2008 to 2011. In 2012 she made a residency at NODE center for curatorial studies. Her work path lead from graphic to exhibition design and brand-design for local museums to working as an assistant curator at Shiryaevo Biennial (2018) and later as a curator of Victoria gallery in Samara (2020-present). There Anastasia is mainly responsible for Victoria Underground space and defines her mission as supporting local artists (from different regions of Russia) and practicing experimental curatorial approaches. Her interest includes, but is not limited to cultural identity and local geography, (post)digital art, performance and contemporary dance, time- and process-based art, artificial intelligence, post-human, hybrid practices. Since 2017 Anastasia joined the team of VolgaFest – an urban culture festival on the Volga embankment in Samara as an art-director. Currently she is in the process of completion of her first book (supported by garage.text grant) ‘Vision hunters: artistic and anomalous experiences on the Volga’ that is based on the exhibition she made in 2020 putting together various cultural and occult practices in local geography. Sabine Wedege (1993, she/her) is a visual artist from Denmark, educated from Jutland Art Academy and Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. Works primarily with sculpture, but also with text, video, and sound – used in parallel and in contrast. Researching how to harmonize concept and material, by putting associations in a new frame of references. Occupied with history versus topicality, to connect the past to contemporary issues and questions. Ginevra Ludovici (Rome, 1992) is an independent curator and a Ph.D. candidate at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. Graduated in Economics and Management from Bocconi University and in Contemporary Arts History at Ca’ Foscari University, in 2019 she attended CAMPO – course for curators of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and co-founded the curatorial collective CampoBase. She has carried out collaborations with several institutions, including Carpe Diem Arte and Pesquisa (Lisbon), ASK Research Center – Art, Science, Knowledge (Milan), MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and Pushkin Museum (Venice). She deepened her research and training at UNIDEE Academy (Biella), PACT Zollverein (Essen), BAK (Utrecht), SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen), MACBA (Barcelona) and MADRE (Naples). She has published in academic and sector journals, such as PARSE Journal, NERO editions, roots§routes and Made in Mind, and presented her research in different universities, including The University of Arts Belgrade, The Lisbon Consortium and The UK Association for Art History. Her curatorial activity is rooted in collaborative practices, and it develops parallel to her academic research which focuses on radical pedagogy programs, processes of self-institutionalization in the arts, and decolonial theories and practices. She is currently conducting a visiting research period at HDK – Valand, Academy of Art and Design, in Gothenburg, Sweden. Giulia Menegale is an independent curator and editor living in Italy. At the moment, she is a PhD candidate in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage at IMT (Lucca, Italy). She investigates transnational solidarity networks as a possible strategy to decentralise and pluriversalize the production and exhibit of arts. In her research, she considers case studies across institutional and non-institutional settings. She holds a BA in Visual Art from IUAV (University of Architecture of Venice) and a MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has collaborated as a curatorial, editorial and research assistant for Looking Forward C.I.C. (London, UK), Castello di Rivoli – Museum of Contemporary Arts (Turin, IT), Island gallery (Brussels, BE) and Taryn Simon Projects (New York, US). Currently, she is editor-in-chief of a series of books on art and theory produced by Ayiné, a Brazilian publishing house (Belo Horizonte, Brazil). Karlygash Akhmetbek is a Kazakhstani socially engaged artist and creative producer of community-oriented educational projects. She holds a BA in Interior Design from the Savannah College for Arts and Design and has experience studying and working in Atlanta, United States, and Hong Kong. As a spatial designer she researches and creates environmentally sustainable solutions for infrastructures, conceptual and immersive spaces that evoke connection. Currently she works in a core team of Artcom Platform Public Association and curates activities for communities around Balkhash lake ecosystems. She designs projects like Beine in order to engage everyone in a community to explore one’s space, its beauties and challenges, and to find new perspectives to address them. Lera Lerner (b. 1988, Leningrad) is an artist, curator, and mediator from St. Petersburg, Russia. Her practice, which she defines as sociopoetic art, is based on mutually educative and inclusive projects. Lerner is interested in helping different communities to create magic safe spaces for sharing and support. She researches everyday rituals of care and joy. She explores how we can blur or accept boundaries of otherness through performative practices of embodied empathy. She believes in coincidence, miracle, intuition and love. She creates spontaneous communication in public space through performances, installations, and research. Lera graduated from the Pro Arte Program for contemporary artists (2015) and completed the MA program in Biology at the Faculty of Biology of St. Petersburg State University (2012). She had projects with the Manifesta biennale in St. Petersburg, Grafikens Hus and LAVA-Dansproduktion in Sweden, Mattress factory in Pittsburgh, CEC ArtsLink in NY, Ars Electronica in Linz, Pro Helvetia Swiss art consul in Moscow, Red Square Festival in Berlin, Agents of Change: Mediating Minorities in Finland, Kone foundation in Finland, Consulate General of Italy in St. Petersburg, Institut français de Russie in St. Petersburg. Since 2017 Lerner is co-curating the Art Prospect public art festival. Simon Gennard is a writer and curator based in Ngāmotu New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand, where he is Assistant Curator Contemporary Art and Collection at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. He has previously worked for Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington; The Dowse Art Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt; and Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Previous research has examined queer desire, politics and artmaking in Aotearoa. He holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington (2017). Jelena Andžić is a visual artist from Belgrade, Serbia. She received her MFA in Set Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2019 and in 2016 graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. She recently finished the Metàfora Studio Arts diploma course in Barcelona and defended her final thesis at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona (MACBA) in January 2022. Her artistic practice revolves around the static image and the potential it holds in terms of giving and absorbing knowledge. Her main points of interest are the impenetrability and ambiguity painting inherently possesses, as well as the different roles time plays in painting and photography. She recently had her solo exhibition at N.O. Concept Gallery (Belgrade) and took part in group exhibitions in Homesession (Barcelona), àngels barcelona | Espai 2 (Barcelona), Mutuo galería (Barcelona), Cultural Center Pančevo (Pančevo), Museum of Applied Arts (Belgrade). In 2022 she was a resident at Fabra i Coats: Fàbrica de Creació in Barcelona. She is currently based in Belgrade and works in a studio space in Jugošped building. < Participants Educational Program Programs >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Massimiliano Mollona hosted by Kolarac Venue: Student square no 5 Date: December 5th 2022 18:00 Small Hall On constellations and earth by Aslıhan Demirtaş Taking departure of his recently published book Art/Commons that looks at the commons from the perspectives of contemporary art history and anthropology, focusing on the ongoing tensions between art and capitalism, lecture will trace relationship between the art and commons through practice of Institute of Radical Imagination that Mollona is engaged in. The lecture is grounded in an analysis of contemporary artistic and curatorial practices, which the author describes as practices of commoning, based on co-production, participation, mutualism and the valorization of reproductive labour. Mollona proposes a novel theoretical approach to current debates on the commons, and shows that art can provide both a language of anti-capitalist and post-colonial critique as well as a distinctive set of skills and practices of commoning. About Speaker Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona is a writer, filmmaker, and anthropologist. He is associate professor at the Department of the Art (DAR) at the University of Bologna. He has a multidisciplinary background in economics, anthropology and visual art, and his work focuses on the relationship between art and political economy, with a specific angle on work, class, and post-capitalist politics. His fieldworks combine pedagogy, artistic prefiguration, and activism. He is a co-founder and member of the collective freethought; the Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI); and the Laboratory for the Urban Commons, (LUC) Athens. The event is free and open to the public. The WCSCD educational program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. The lecture by Massimiliano Mollona is supported by Instituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado. Project Partners We thank following partners for supporting selected participants for 2022 program: Romanian Cultural Institute. Artcom platform , Kadist Foundation, William Demant Foundation For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities WCSCD Annual Lecture Series 2022 WCSCD Annual Lecture Series 2022 Presented in collaboration with Kolarac Educational program What Could Should Curating Do Annual lecture series 2022 is proud to partner with Kolarac this year Number of mentors of this years educational program will have public moment during stay in Belgrade to share their own practice. As every year this will not be possible without kind support from colleagues and institutions in Serbia and around the world including Kadist Foundation, Italian Cultural Institute of Belgrade, The Group of Architects, Embajada De Espana en Belgrado who support our vision towards pedagogies. Public lectures will be as usual free of charge and open to public. Public lecture series will start in November and we are proud to present following speakers this year. November 9th 2022 18:00 Hajnalka Somogyi is a curator based in Budapest. Since 2014, she has worked as leader and co-curator of OFF-Biennále Budapest , which she initiated. In 2022, OFF-Biennale is participating at documenta fifteen as member of ‘lumbung interlokal’. November 30th 2022 18:00 Aslıhan Demirtaş is a practicing architect, artist, writer and educator. Her practice is situated on and around the boundaries of disciplines engaged in making, often in the forms of buildings, gardens and art projects, while searching for a revised mode of existence and practice on our planet. She lives in Istanbul and together with Ali Cindoruk runs KHORA Office, a climate for design, making and thinking. December 5th 2022 18:00 Massimiliano Mollona teaches anthropology at Department of the Arts at Bologna University and at Goldsmiths College, London. His practice is being situated at the intersection of pedagogy, art and activism which he explores from within projects he co-initiated like the Institute of Radical Imagination and the Laboratory of Urban Commons (Athens). December 13th 2022 18:00 Amelie Aranguren, head of artistic programming at INLAND’s Center for the Aproach to the Rural (CAR) in Madrid and Inland member since 2010. < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? 2018 Call for Applications Author of the project: Biljana Ćirić, in collaboration with Supervizuelna / Visual identity: Saša Tkačenko Application deadline: April 30, 2018 Start date: September 2018 Duration: September 7 – December 7, 2018 Final exhibition project: January 2019 The first international course for emerging curators to take place in Belgrade, Serbia, will be held from September to December 2018, and will draw upon the unique local and regional context as a critical source of knowledge. Participants will be engaged in a rigorous itinerary of extensive studio visits, research visits to public and private institutions and collections, along with a series of closed door workshop sessions led by both international and local mentors of the program. The program aims to situate curatorial practice within the specific contextual framework of the region, while also providing insights to the wider international framework related to exhibition-making practices on both a theoretical and practical level. Over the course of the three month-long program, international cultural producers will conduct specific workshops related to different aspects of curating, offering participants the opportunity to individually and collectively consider the different institutional aspects that often frame curatorial endeavors. For the culmination of the course, participants will propose a collective exhibition and will also be tasked with working on the accompanying publication. The Belgrade-based artist Saša Tkačenko has been commissioned to develop the visual identity for the project, as well as to conceive how to best document the project and the final exhibition in book format. Niels Van Tomme, director at De Appel in Amsterdam (a contemporary art institution that runs a pioneering curatorial programme since 1994), will give an inaugural lecture in June about the prominent role the Curatorial Programme takes within De Appel’s institutional context (final date to be confirmed). The primary mentors for the course include Dorothea von Hantelmann (Bard College, Berlin); Antariksa (co-founding member of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, Yogyakarta, Indonesia); the Flash Art Magazine editorial team (Flash Art is a bimonthly magazine focused on contemporary art, based in Milan); Elena Filipović (director of Kunsthalle Basel); Tara McDowell (director of curatorial practice at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia); Maria Lind (director of Tensta konsthall, Stockholm); Matt Packer (director of EVA International); Hou Hanru (artistic director of MAXXI Rome, Italy); and What, How & for Whom (a curatorial collective formed in 1999 and based in Zagreb, Croatia), among others. Application requirements: Applicants must be 35 years of age or younger No prior degrees in art or art history are required The course fee of 300 € (international participants will be assisted with finding accommodation in Belgrade an accommodation rate is approximately 150 € per month) Applications should include the following items as a single WORD or PDF document, sent by email to what.could.curating.do@gmail.com with the subject line Curatorial-course-Belgrade by April 30 2018: CV/Portfolio Letter of Interest (500 words maximum, explaining why you are interested in curatorial practices) Project Description(300 words maximum, an urgent project you would like to develop) Based on the quality of the submitted documents, 15 participants will be selected to attend the course. Selected applicants should plan to arrive in Belgrade no later than September 7, 2018. The final list of the participants will be announced in May 2018. After the run of the program, three attendees who have been recommended by program mentors will have an opportunity to submit a proposal to the Ming Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai for their curatorial research residency (in 2019). The course is long term project initiated by Biljana Ćirić together with Supervizuelna, with the following institutions as project partners: The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, GRAD—European Center for Culture and Debate, EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial and Zepter Museum. Project was supported by: Goethe Institute in Belgrade, Istituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado, Embassy of Sweden, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, EU Info Centre; Eugster || Belgrade, Zepter Hotel. Media partners: EUNIC Serbia, RTS3.

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Program Participant Activities 2024 Glossary l(a)unch: gender issues On WCSCD educational programme | Collective reflections Walking as a Way of Knowing – Belgrade Regenerative living-creating spaces for the multi species co-existence Celebrating Resilience and Solidarity Glossary l(a)unch: a passage between collecting and transforming 2022 Program Participant Activities 2020/21 Series of texts developed by participants of WCSCD 2020/2021 program as a response to Bruno Latour text What protective measures can you think of so we don’t go back to the pre-crisis production model? 2019 To be enjoyed endlessly – a zine final project by WCSCD2019 curators Seda Yıldız and Ewa Borysiewicz Reading of the biggest image in Belgrade The WCSCD 2019 Salary Spreadsheet: Expanding the Conversation Around Salaries in the Arts < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

WCSCD 2020/21 open call Call Opens: February 6, 2020 Call Closes: March 8, 2020, promptly at 17:00 The 2020 program will run from August 1 to October 29, 2020. WCSCD continues to value and emphasize forms of curatorial practice that are active at the margins of the mainstream art world, yet that contribute to the global perspective. This is accomplished primarily through reflection on the local context and efforts to rethink how to meaningfully contribute to the production of curatorial discourses. This is can also be read as an attempt to de-colonize art and its many discourses more broadly. The program maintains an international purview, while proposing consideration of what it means to be international within the abovementioned theoretical parameters. This is in part accomplished through the invitation of the 2020 mentors for the program, including Ekaterina Degot (Director and Chief Curator of steirischer herbst), Lisa Rosendahl (Associate Professor of Exhibition Studies at Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and Curator of GIBCA – the Gothenburg biennial in 2019 & 2021, Chus Martínez (Director of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Luca Lo Pinto (Director of MACRO in Rome), Suzana Milevska (Curator and a visual culture theorist), Jelena Vesic (Independent curator, writer, and lecturer – based in Belgrade), Xiang Zairong (Scholar), Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (Independent curator, editor and writer), and ruangrupa (Artistic directors of Documenta 15) among others. For this iteration, the curatorial program WCSCD2020 will have a specific focus on women curators or directors of institutions with ties to the former Yugoslavian cultural field from the 1970s, which challenged mainstream approaches to art. Program participants will conduct interviews, engage in archival practices around their research into these practitioners, all while thinking about modes of archiving in and of itself and discussing different curatorial histories. Each participants’ research practices will be shared and contextualized through different public forms of expression during the program. s. The research conducted as part of WCSCD 2020 will create an archive around these practices, which will be made accessible through publication and open source online content. The aim will also be to discuss these artists’ contributions towards the creation of an “art system” in the region. As the educational-curatorial platform WCSCD enters its third year, it is of note to point out that the majority of attendees of the program thus far have been women, with enrollment of only 20% men. Similar art educational programs around the world share these experiences, and in university contexts as well—women outnumber men in the study of Art History. This poses an important question on the role of gender in relation to curatorial practices and positions within different institutions of art. By revisiting the historical moments cited above, we intend to contextualize and reflect on the current situation within our working contexts as well.Over the past two years we’ve seen the rise of an international movement, the #metoo campaign, thanks in part to the many brave arts professionals who went public with their experiences of harassment and violence, which is now part of the public domain. Yet, the gender imbalance between different work areas and roles within the art system is still very much present today. These observations, along with many others, have led us to tailor a project that will look at the “notion of the curatorial” through a gendered lens and within the context of the ex-Yugoslavian cultural field. Criteria for consideration: Applicants must be 35 years of age or younger No prior degrees in art or art history are required The course fee is based on the monthly average salary of the country from which you hail, for which you are a passport holder (we use online reference of most recent average salary data of successful applicants) Please note that the fee does not include accommodations or travel costs. International participants will be provided assistance with finding accommodations in Belgrade—such accommodations are approximately 180 EUR per month. The standard course fee also does not cover travel and accommodations for research trips. Successful applicants should prepare an allowance of approximately 300 EUR to cover these additional costs. How to apply: Applications should include the following items as a single Word or PDF document, sent by email to what.could.curating.do@gmail.com with the subject line: Curatorial-Course-WCSCD 2020 by March 8, 2020: CV/Portfolio Letter of Interest (500 words maximum, explaining your interest in curatorial practices and specific research interests) Description (300 words maximum, the working methodology you propose with regard to the project, taking into consideration the role of archives, ways of designing and testing new methodologies for implementation, and gender-related research) Based on the quality of the submitted documents, up to 15 participants will be selected to attend the course. Selected applicants should plan to arrive in Belgrade no later than August 1, 2020. The final list of participants will be announced the first week of April 2020. The final curriculum of the program will be confirmed in May 2020 and shared with the attending curators at that time. This year WCSCD introduced the possibility for distant education and participation in the mentoring session with price 400 euros for program duration for more information how to apply for it pls write to us with subject WCSCD online program WCSCD is proud to also announce the advisory group who will help us shape the program, the members of which include: Matt Packer, Director of the Eva International Biennial; Ares Shporta, Director of the Lumbardhi Foundation; and Andrea Palasti, a Novi Sad based artist. The WCSCD curatorial course is a long-term project initiated by Biljana Ćirić, with the support and collaboration of the following partner institutions: The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade; EVA International—Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art; and Zepter Museum, among others. The project is supported by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado; the Austrian Cultural Forum; Institut français de Serbie, Swedish Embassy in Belgrade and Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau among others. For more information regarding the application process and/or invited lecturers for the 2020 program, please refer to the website: www.old.wcscd.com . For other queries, please send to the following email address: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com .

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Lecture by Patrick D. Flores and launch of the WCSCD book Launch of the What Could/Should Curating Do? book together with Sasa Tkacenko, Katarina Kostandinovic, Neva Lukic and Sinisa Ilic, followed with a lecture by Patrick D. Flores When: May 13, 2019, 18:00 Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade What Could/Should Curating Do? is proud to announce the inaugural lecture for the 2019 program by Patrick D. Flores, titled Singapore Biennial 2019: Some Political Inspirations. The presentation will speak to the methods undertaken and conceptual impulse to convene a biennial in Singapore, noting the lively cultural and social milieu of contemporary art in Southeast Asia and the ethical demands involved in evoking this liveliness. Patrick D Flores Patrick Flores, Artistic Director of SB2019 explains: “It may be said that the world is troubled. To sense such a state of flux is to acknowledge the situation and begin to face it. For Singapore Biennale 2019, we ask: What are the possibilities for art, the artist, and the audience in light of this trouble? What are the responsibilities of the artwork, its making, and its experience in the prospects of future action? As we believe, every effort to change the world for the better does in fact matter. SB2019 puts its faith squarely in the potential of art and its capacity to rework the world, as expressed in the Biennial’s title: Every Step in the Right Direction.” About the speaker: Patrick D. Flores is Professor of Art Studies in the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, which he chaired from 1997 to 2003, and Curator of the Vargas Museum in Manila. One of his many publications, The Exhibition Problematic and the Asian Dislocal revisits the conceptual conditions that prompt students of the history of exhibitions and the future of their making to ask questions about notions of history and futurity through the proposition of the exhibition. Previously, Flores curated the Philippine pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015, the exhibition Position Papers at the Gwangju Biennale in 2008, and served as one of the curators of Under Construction: New Dimensions in Asian Art at the Japan Foundation in 2000. He also co-curated South by Southeast, an exhibition of contemporary art from Southeast Asia and Southeast Europe, organized by the Osage Art Foundation in 2015. A respected art historian, Flores was a guest scholar of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2014. Some of his other publications include Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (2008). Joining this inaugural lecture for the 2019 program, the first volume in the What Could/Should Curating Do? publication series will also launch, which is co-published with Orion Art and conceptualized by Sasa Tkacenko and Biljana Ciric. What Could/Should Curating Do? Visual by Sasa Tkacenko Photo by Hu Yun The interest for What Could/Should Curating Do? to publish this series came out of the necessity to develop a scholarship for the curatorial course that was first established in 2018. The series also simultaneously serves as an archive of the discourses produced around the course on an annual basis, thereby engaging with questions of how to archive something that is still in development. These volumes are one possible solution to be further shared and explored. With this mind, the WCSCD publication series developed into a kind of annual reader related to the curatorial discourses that grow out of the program’s different workshops, initiated by the invited guest mentors to the program. At the same time, this effort also encourages the attending, emerging curators to produce and contribute their own writing. Neva Lukić and Katarina Kostandinović / Photo by Hu Yun Collaged view on Didactic exhibition by Siniša Ilić / photo by Hu Yun Perfromance by Saša Tkačenko Neva Lukić and Katarina Kostandinović / Photo by Hu Yun Collaged view on Didactic exhibition by Siniša Ilić / photo by Hu Yun Perfromance by Saša Tkačenko The first volume includes contributions : Neva Lukic, Katarina Kostandinovic, Dorothea von Hantelmann, Elena Filipović, Tara McDowell ,Maria Lind, Matt Packer, Mia David, Hou Hanru, What, How & for Whom, Jasna Jasna Zmak, Kirila Cvetkovska, Ruri Kawanami, Vera Zalutskaya Niels van Tomme, Sinisa Ilic, Milena Joksimovic, Agustina Andreoletti, Tjasa Pogacar, Boba Mirjana Stojadinovic, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Branislav Dimitrijevic and Biljana Ciric. During this special evening, WCSCD will also announce the curators who have been accepted into the WCSCD 2019 course, and highlight the partners for the WCSCD 2019 program as well as new artist commission. The curatorial course is a long term project made possible with the support and collaboration of the following partner institutions: Project patron: Wiener Städtische; Partners: The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade; EVA International—Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art; Center for Promotion of Science and Zepter Museum, among others. The project is supported by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado; the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Belgrade; the Austrian Cultural Forum; Heinrich Boell Stiftung; Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau; and EUNIC Serbia, Media partners Before After and Designed. < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >