Search Results

VERNACULAR GESTURES AND EMBODIED KNOWELDGE “…intelligence is not located in any body part but is distributed throughout the entire field of relations comprised by the presence of the human being in the inhabited world.” (“Feet, footwork, footwear and ‘being alive’ in the modern school” by Dr Catherine Burke, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge) A focus of a contemporary art system on the notions of ‘contemporary’ often disregards vernacular practices that actually connect us to personal and collective history, open space for rooted knowledge of peoples and territories and give a perspective for conscious action for the future. By introducing to contemporary art thinking and art practice the notions of indigenous and embodied knowledge, we encourage you to find inspiration in learning by doing, to redefine the meaning of failure and establish connections with vernacular practices of you region and/or family. BLOCK 3.1 An input for this task is provided by Biljana Ciric, WSCSD program initiator. Intro Look closely into your surroundings. Where is the vernacular around you? Do you live near a village, a rural area, an ethnographic museum? Do you have something crafted in your apartment? List your findings ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Now look at what you’ve got in your closest social strata. Are there practices in your family that are vernacular? Ask your senior family members. We encourage you to trace these vernacular gestures, learn about them. Task Choose a vernacular practice and trace it backwards and forwards. Where did it come from? How is it preserved today? Is it evolving? Is it affected by technology? Are there contemporary artists / practitioners trying to reactualise it? Compose your research into a presentation. Additional materials Listen to “Futurefarmers” podcast by AHALI Conversations w/ Can Altay Read an article “Feet, footwork, footwear and ‘being alive’ in the modern school” by Dr Catherine Burke, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge Self-feedback Reflect on your research. Do you feel inspired, happy, sad or devastated on how this vernacular practice lives through today? Expand your thoughts on how indigenous practices should be maintained, implemented in contemporary life. BLOCK 3.2 Together with artist and curator Anastasia Albokrinova we encourage you to look closer into your habitual practices and let a vernacular gesture pass through your body and affect your thinking. Intro How are the habits of a body shaped by digital reality? In which ways grasping a vernacular practice can expand your body consciousness? What practices of commonness are developed through the embodied knowledge? How does an embodied knowledge transform into ‘knowing'? This task offers you to focus on a particular vernacular practice of your choice and trace the process of learning in a diary. It also questions the means of transmission, both acquiring and passing the knowledge forward. Task Choose a vernacular practice you would like to grasp. If you can't think of something - make a bread or cook something according to your family recipe. Create a diary: make notes on the ways you learn, what you notice on the way. Think about failure. What does it mean - to fail? How failure can be a driving force for learning and creativity? After doing a vernacular gesture, transmit it to one more person. Additional materials Listen to a podcast “Foragers” with Jumana Manna, created by “Docs in Orbit” Listen to a podcast of your choice from the podcast series “Promise No Promises!” by Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW in Basel Self-feedback Take a moment to reflect on your body: what inspirations, fatigues did you experience? What gestures did you grasp, how did they evolve in the process of learning? How would you describe the knowledge you have acquired?

Times Museum Guangdong Times Museum is a non-profit institution funded by private sectors, and Times China has been the core funder since the inauguration of the Museum. In 2003, Times Property (former name of Times China) and Guangdong Museum of Art (GDMA) co-founded the temporary pavilion as a branch of GDMA at Times Rose Garden in 2003. When Wang Huangsheng, the Former Director of GDMA and the curator Hou Hanru invited Rem Koolhaas and Alan Fouraux to conceptualize an architectural proposal in the D-Lab of the 2nd Guangzhou Triennial in 2005, the Museum was incubated as a hub for artistic experiments in the region of Pearl River Delta. After the completion of its facility, Guangdong Times Museum became independent and officially opened its door to the public in December 31, 2010. In November 2018, Guangdong Times Museum initiated Times Art Center Berlin as its parallel institution in Europe with the support of Times China. We program up to 4-6 exhibitions in our gallery space, introduce over a hundred artists and art works to the city of Guangzhou, and commission more than a dozen new works every year. We reach out to our audience through curated events on weekly basis. We engage with both the artists and the public to develop ideas, produce artworks and test receptions. We value our public role as a cultural institution, and endeavor to formulate conversations and document social changes. While supporting artists to present their critical ideas and to produce ambitious art works, we also attempt to indigenize the language of contemporary art. After a decade of robust programming, Guangdong Times Museum has become a cultural landmark of the city where people can discover art, connect with each other, feel inspired by unexpected learnings and worldly experiences. ArtCom ArtCom is a contemporary art and public engagement platform, established in 2015 as a non-profit community-based organization. Founded by independent curator, Aigerim Kapar, with support from the art community. Artcom aims to connect local contemporary art practices in urban, cultural and social milieux. In doing so, Artcom unites art practitioners, social scientists, philosophers, architects and urban planners, as well as students and the wider public, to exchange experiences and skills, engage in knowledge production, research local issues, and be involved with and create local art and interdisciplinary projects. Artcom is committed to creating and sustaining the best environment for contemporary art and culture in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Our mission is to support artists, curators and art professionals; and strengthen their communities, especially the young and emerging among them. Since 2017, we have run Art Collider, an informal school where art meets science and technology. Together with art practitioners and academics, we present a series of public lectures, discussions, and workshops in order to find a language to describe our postcolonial situation and decolonial future. MG+MSUM Moderna galerija is a national museum that works, in accordance with its mission, in the fields of modern and contemporary art. It was founded in 1947 as a museum of modern art. With Slovenia’s independence in 1991, Moderna galerija became the principal national institution of modern and contemporary art and an increasingly active link between the local and the international, in particular Central and Eastern European, contexts. During the transition following the downfall of the Communist regime, Moderna galerija suffered financial problems and personnel shortage. Today’s vision of Moderna galerija is based on its history from the founding to the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the downfall of Socialism, on the strong experience of the Balkan wars, the transition period and critical awareness of the increasing globalisation processes. The concept of museum advocated by Moderna galerija follows its own way and resists the existing hegemonic models. In the crucial period of the 1990’s, Moderna galerija refused to become a postmodern museum of sensations and intense experiences; on the threshold of the new millennium it fairly clearly developed the concept of an art museum that advocates the plurality of narratives and priorities of local spaces that intend to enter equal dialogues with other spaces only with their own symbolic capital. Since 2011, Moderna galerija has operated on two locations: in the original building of Moderna galerija (MG+) in the centre of Ljubljana and in the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM) located on the renovated premises of former military barracks. The concept of Moderna galerija as a museum of modern and contemporary art was initiated in the early 1990’s, at the time of a strong need to allow more space for the previously neglected contemporary art and form closer links with the international space as well as with the national history and the historical moment then marked by the war and the new political geography of Europe. In contrast to the past decades, Moderna galerija began to show the interest in the present moment, which involved a different, but no less responsible addressing of the past. This initiated the processes that acquired their first tangible form in the Instrument of Constitution of Moderna galerija (2004) that defines the difference between the museum of modern art and museum of contemporary art as follows. As a museum of modern art it systematically explores, collects, and presents the art of Modernism and its traditions. It deals primarily with Slovenian 20th century art from the beginnings of Modernism around 1900, but also with contemporary artists who continue the tradition of Modernist trends. As a museum of contemporary art it covers contemporary practices in the field of the visual arts. It presents new contents in and new ways of expressing, exhibiting and interpreting contemporary art. By regularly purchasing works by Slovene artists, it is building a permanent collection of the 21st century art and adding to the international Arteast Collection 2000+ by purchasing works by foreign artists. The museum of modern art is defined as a museum devoted to the notion and tradition of Modernism as a historical style. Although established as a museum of contemporary art, the museum of modern art had gradually turned into a museum of the past that accumulated through time and eventually opened the door to the museum of contemporary art. But even if the art displayed in the museum of modern art is mostly from the previous century, the ways of addressing it are determined by the present time and its priorities. A museum of contemporary art does not necessarily differ from a museum of modern art in terms of historical period: in this respect, the two may even overlap as the tradition of Modernism is still alive while contemporary art draws from different art traditions. The programme of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova thus reaches back to the new art practices of the 1960’s although its social and political contemporaneity begins especially with the crucial events from the early 1990’s. Moderna galerija addresses both the museum of modern art and the museum of contemporary art from the aspect of multi-temporality derived from the critique of linear time and its universal validity. Different activities of both museums point out antagonisms rather than cover them by different virtual pluralities. Moderna galerija attempts to develop a different model of museum based on the criticism and redefinition of democratic institution. Its priorities include the construction of a local context and dialogues with different localities that follow especially similar priorities and interests in developing different institutionality and new models of cultural production. Rockbund Art Museum Inaugurated in 2010, Rockbund Art Museum is a contemporary art museum located on the Bund in Shanghai. With a strong reputation for our innovative curatorial approach, we look to conceive different art projects from research to alternative learning programs, from exhibition-making to unexpected para-performative formats. By supporting bold contemporary art practices, we aim to continually remake local histories, whilst also responding to global art challenges and social mutations. We regard the role of exchange as an essential process required for a wider transformation to occur by building up a network of multi-regional, international and cross-disciplinary partnerships. Through this process, we aim to cultivate a diverse and deep-rooted connection to our audiences, communities, and also different social and cultural organizations. More on www.rockbundartmuseum.org As you go… the roads under your feet, towards a new future collaborates with Rockbund Art Museum through Curtain project initiated by museum director Larys Frogier and number of collaborators Mathieu Copeland, Biljana Ciric, Cosmin Costinas, Hsieh Feng-Rong, Billy Tang. Initiated in 2020, CURTAIN is a long term research project, which will be articulated through a series of exhibition formats, discursive platforms and cross-institutional collaborations spanning a three-year period. Seeking to go beyond the fixed definition of an exhibition, the project looks to expand the dialogue with artists through the gathering of critical thinkers and practitioners from other social and cultural fields. The Public Library Bor Library and information activity in Bor and its environs dates back to 1869 when the first public reading room was opened in the village of Zlot. Since then, many libraries and reading rooms of various types were opened and closed in the town and its schools, factories, organizations, and nearby villages, especially in the above-mentioned Zlot, where the first workers’ or so-called socialists’ reading room was also temporarily opened in 1909. The purpose of the workers’ reading room was not just the acquisition and distribution of the reading materials, but also agitation against and awareness-raising of capitalistic and political exploitation of human resources among the villagers-workers. During the Second World War, the town of Bor was a forced labour camp, due to the large and valuable copper mine, and there was no public library institution. Books and other reading materials were allowed to circulate only among the Nazi occupants. The Public Library Bor (‘the Library’) was founded in 1962, when several smaller suburban public libraries and reading rooms were combined. Since then, it has been the central library for the District of Bor. Since 1972, the Library has been located in the House of Culture, in a dedicated space across four floors. The Library has changed its organization several times, and today it consists of six departments: Department for the Acquisition and Cataloguing, Information Services Department, Children’s Department, Department for the Adults (with two sub-departments – Languages and Literature, and Non-fiction), Local History Department, and Special Collections and Periodicals with the reading room. There is also a special broad and well-equipped hall for exhibitions, projections, concerts and other programs on the first floor. The Library has four branches in the nearby villages, too. Right now, 18 librarians work in the Library and its branches, with six of them being senior librarians and one of them an advisor. The Library continually acquires, catalogues and lends various print and non-print materials and sources of information – books, periodicals, non-book materials such as photos, maps, movies and videos, multimedia etc. The collections are mostly available for self-service and the majority of materials are for use outside of the library. Membership is obligatory for those who want to take the materials home, but the fees are symbolic (1.5–3.5 euros per year) and many categories of citizens, such as pre-school children or the unemployed, can become members free of charge. The Library collections are regularly renewed, according to the analysis and evaluation by staff of the collections and their purposes, the publishing production, and the users’ needs and demands. The acquisition is selective but non-discriminatory, because the main goal of the Library is to provide access to the reading materials and a variety of reliable and checked sources of information to all citizens who need them in all possible formats. The other important aim of the Library is to promote reading interests, knowledge, valuable fiction and non-fiction works, sources of scientific information, and literacies of all kinds, including media and information and digital literacy. In order to do that, library staff organize various programs such as book talks, literary evenings with the authors, lectures, panel discussions, workshops for kids, young adults or librarians, and photo-exhibitions, especially those designed to present and promote the Local History Department Photography Collection and/or local photographers and other visual artists. In addition to the materials, the users have 6 PCs with internet access at their disposal. Recently, the Library acquired a VR headset, so that new materials – educative VR content – have become available. There is the possibility of interlibrary loans, too. The Library participates in the national and international Cooperative Online Bibliographic System and Services (COBISS), so that the information about collections (catalogue records) and a user’s own history of loans, reservations, search terms, and organized saved records are online and freely accessible, searchable and personally manageable for the user. Since 1999, the Library has published „Beležnica“ (The Notebook) – a journal dedicated both to library and information science activities, especially the activities of the Public Library Bor, as well as the local scene, history, literature and other issues of local significance. The publishing activity of the Library also includes several books (edited collections) as the final results of the various projects. < About Curatorial Inquiries Activities >

Zian Chen Zian Chen is a curator and co-editor of Heichi Magazine . At times, he collaborates with others to develop alternative frameworks for artistic thinking and speculation. Wu Chi-Yu: Atlas of the Closed Worlds , 2021 Co-editing: Arrow Factory: The Last Five Years , 2020 Co-curating: Planet Marx Reading Club , 2019 Co-curating: Long March Project: The Deficit Faction , 2019 {review ; guidebook } Production Fever 2008, 2019 Co-curating: Long March Project: Building Code Violations III – Special Economic Zone, 2018 {review } Marysia Lewandowska, Rehearsing the Museum , 2018 With Liu Chuang: Revizionistinio akseleracionizmo link , 2018 Recent contributions: An open letter to these strange times Curtain Magazine Interview Instant Retrospectives: Freeze-Dried , Ready-To-Go The Club-Museum Ecosystem 2: Alvin Li’s Conceptronic Curating Hauntologies of Chinese Contemporary Art: Instant Retrospectives Redux

Past Programs 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2020 Program Archive WCSCD 2020/21 Open Call February 5, 2020 Art and the Post-Pandemic Condition – an online curatorial program and support grant for art practitioners May 15, 2020 WCSCD emergency grant announces grant recipients July 16, 2020 WCSCD emergency grant for practitioners in Former Yugoslav Region June 22, 2020

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities What is The Use? Needs and Means of Making Biennials Under Pandemic | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to be continued in 2021 with public program through lecture series The sixth talk in the 2020/21 series is titled: “What is The Use? Needs and Means of Making Biennials Under Pandemic” A talk/walk through Prizren in preparation of Autostrada Biennale with Övül Ö. Durmusoglu and Joanna Warsza Date: February 5, 2020 Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade / 10:00 pm Melbourne / 07:00 pm Shanghai / 6:00 am New York Venue: zoom link Meeting ID: 985 237 3109 Live stream/Facebook link Credit: A research for Autostrada Biennale, National Library of Kosovo, 2020 “The presentation takes form of a walk live from our second research trip to Prizren under continuing lockdown. Times of challenge for humanity’s unsustainable habits, patterns of living and producing on the planet have arrived. In this ongoing pandemic experience, the formats of content production in contemporary art, especially large-scale exhibitions called biennales need to rethink themselves. While art and culture should remain on the life necessities agenda, our questions and claims as curators need to find a down-to-earth resonance with current needs, limits and means. After ‘Die Balkone’, a public art initiative in windows and balconies of Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, Övül and Joanna welcomed the invitation by the very young Autostrada Biennial initiated by two artists and an educator in Kosovo. The onsite conversations with artists, writers, cultural producers, activists, politicians lead to projects and stories in need of being heard; which motivated the working question around ‘two ends of the road and mutual needs’. Therefore, the biennale will not be cancelled but rooted locally in what we call ‘intimate infrastructure’. As we take the viewers on a walk “What is The Use?”, we will talk about the concept of biennale as resistance and the upcoming Autostrada Biennale as a journey where tools of care and unpredictability are part of their emergency kit on the road trip to the present, from Berlin to Kosovo and back. Or somewhere in between”. Joanna Warsza and Övül Ö. Durmusoglu co-curate Die Balkone in Berlin in 2020 and 2021, and Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo in summer 2021. Foto: Christian Lohse About Speaker Övül Ö. Durmusoglu is mentor and program co-leader in the Graduate School in University of the Arts in Berlin and a visiting professor for Art and Discourse in University of the Arts Braunschweig. In her multifaceted practice as curator, writer and educator, she researches intersectional forms and narratives of contemporary political subjectivities. Övül was one of the curators for the Steirischer Herbst festival in Graz; curator/director for YAMA public screen in Istanbul; artistic director for the Sofia Contemporary 2013 ‘Near, Closer, Together: Exercises for a Common Ground’. She curated different programs for the 10th, 13th and 14th Istanbul Biennials; coordinated and organized different programs and events at Maybe Education and Public Programs for dOCUMENTA (13). Joanna Warsza is a Program Director of CuratorLab at Konstfack University of Arts in Stockholm, and an independent curator interested in how art functions politically and socially outside the white cubes. She was the Artistic Director of Public Art Munich 2018, curator of the Georgian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, head of public programs for Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg and an associate curator of the 7th Berlin Biennale among others. She is an editor of more than ten publications in the areas of public art, politics, performativity and feminist theory. Lately she co-edited with Michele Masucci and Maria Lind, Red Love, a Reader on Alexandra Kollontai (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020). WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) was initiated and funded in 2018 in Belgrade as an educational platform around notions of curatorial. From 2020 WCSCD started to initiate its own curatorial inquiries and projects that should unpack above -mentioned complexities keeping educational component as a core to the WCSCD. The WCSCD curatorial program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. WCSCD 2020/2021 public program series has been done in collaboration with Division of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University and they co-stream all public lectures. Strategic media collaboration is done with Seecult and they will co-host all public lecture series. Project Partners Media Partner 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 >

Alumni 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2018 Alumni Agustina Andreoletti works within the realms of research, writing, discussion, publishing and exhibition making. Her practice reflects on the unstable overlap between material, social and political processes; especially as such relations develop over time. Andreoletti is currently a Postgrad fellow at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Ivana Čavić is an artist based in Serbia and currently studies photography at The Academy Of Arts Novi Sad. Her photographic practice is an exploration of narration and context, focused on creating visual narratives that question boundaries of documentation and fiction, private and public. With research based work she is often playing with photographic and textual narratives which trigger a dialogue about different readings of personal histories and memories. She participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and international collaborative projects. Jovana Vasić is a student of interdisciplinary doctoral studies at the University of Arts in Belgrade on the program Theory of Arts and Media. With the mentor Nikola Dedić she is working on the thesis – The critical institutional theory of the Museum of Contemporary Art. She writes and publishes papers in the field of art theory. In her previous work, she dealt with the issues of the transposition of personal narratives in the form of memories through the relationship between the public and the private. Karen Vestergaard Andersen is a curator and writer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her curatorial practice explores alternative research methods though open artistic dialogue with the aim of generating new curatorial methodologies that are both critically engaging and context sensitive. Her research interests and methodologies derive from an intersectional approaches to queer / feminist discourse and New Materialist theory. Her writing has appeared in various artists’ catalogues and publications, including at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Kunsthal, as well as in Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics, Danske Museer and Notes on Metamodernism. Kirila Cvetkovska is an independent researcher, curator and artist from Macedonia. After studying art history and psychology in Rome, Italy, she has been involved in the cultural programming of the non-profit Tevereterno (both in Rome and NYC). Currently, she is living in Macedonia, while also collaborating with artists in Italy on experimental art projects. Kirila’s personal practice dwells on the themes of collective memory, loss and detachment, analyzing the cross-cultural values that encompass these issues, while liberating oneself from the restraints of consumerism. She is attempting to bring art to a much wider audience, in places without a largely established art scene. Marta Saccavino obtained her MA degree in Art History, University of Leeds, UK. In her academic work she focused on artists coming from “relative peripheries”, a concept explored by Maria Lind. Her current researches focus at the close relationship between art and cinema, specifically on how television intervenes and shapes this relationship, which began with the invention of cinema itself, and it is often analysed without taking in consideration the latter element. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary project on sacred and profane relics with an emerging fashion designer and the Morgagni Museum in Padua. Milena Jokanović is a research-fellow at the Art History Department, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade where she obtained her PhD recently. She has also obtained MA diploma at the UNESCO Chair for Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Arts, Belgrade and Université Lumière Lyon. Her research interests therefore span the museology, use of the historical models of collecting in modern and contemporary art, theories of memory and identity construction and cultural heritage management. She curated several exhibitions, has written many papers and managed few cultural projects. Nina Mihaljinac is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arts in Belgrade in the field of cultural management and cultural policy. She works as a project manager for Creative Creative Europe Serbia at the Ministry of Culture of RS. She obtained her doctorate in Arts and Media at the University of Art in Belgrade in 2017. She has participated in numerous national and international research projects and has published several monographs and dozens of papers in the field of art theory, culture of memory, management in culture and cultural policy. Neva Lukić has completed her master’s degree in art history and archaeology from the University of Zagreb, and in theory of modern and contemporary art at Leiden University. She has professional experience in museum curatorship (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka), as a freelance curator (Croatian Association of Artists – Zagreb, Arti et Amicitiae – Amsterdam, See Lab – The Hague, etc.) and as an art critic (active member of Croatian section of AICA – the International Association of Art Critics). She has published four books (poetry & short stories) and one picture book for children. Ruri Kawanami is a Berlin based curatorial assistant working at the intersection of artistic production and critical writings. She studied cultural science at post-graduate level at Humboldt-University in Berlin, where she specialized in the museum epistemology of the early 20th century. From 2014 to 2017, she worked as a curatorial assistant at the Japanese literature museum in Berlin. Teodora Nikčević graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje 2009. Since 2012 she has worked as a curator at the Center for Contemporary Art of Montenegro CSUCG in Podgorica. She actively exhibits at individual and group exhibitions in the country and abroad and participates in numerous residential and art projects. Her work at the CSUCG is focused on the promotion and affirmation of young artists. She was a curator of group exhibitions and led a series of interviews with artists – Artist talks. Tjaša Pogačar works as a freelance writer, editor and curator of exhibitions and discursive programs for various institutional and noninstitutional contexts since 2010. In her work she is concerned with systemic operations of contemporary art and the limits and possible further developments of institutional critique. Some of her recent curatorial and editorial projects look at how contemporary art practices and institutions deal with the current techno-capitalist conditions. She is a co-founder and editor of ŠUM, journal for contemporary art criticism and theory and is currently working as an assistant curator at the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana. Vera Zalutskaya is a contemporary art curator. Her interests are mainly in art of Eastern and Central Europe in the context of postcolonial studies. In 2014 she graduated from the European Humanities University in Vilnius (educational program Theory and practices of contemporary art). Studied also Art history and Culturology: comparative studies of civilization on the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. As a member of different collectives or independently she organized and curated many exhibitions in Belarus and Poland. Zohreh Deldadeh is a freelance art scholar and curator based in Tehran. She started her career as an executive manager in Iranian Art Publishing and Tavoos Contemporary Art Online Magazine; she was part of Mohsen Gallery, one of the leading contemporary art galleries in Tehran; Pejman Foundation’s team as an assistant director and assistant curator in two venues of the foundation (Argo Factory and Kandovan Building). Moreover, she has collaborated as a coordinator, project manager and co-curator with other galleries and art institutions in Iran and abroad. Aleksandra Mikić obtained BA degree in Art History, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade. Her interests are in the art of post Yugoslavian period in conditions of transition. In her researches she is focusing on art practices as social symptoms in the context of biopolitics and biopower. Anna Tudos is a freelance curator from Budapest, Hungary. She completed the Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) MLitt course at the Glasgow School of Art in 2017 after her studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. She is particularly interested in exploring hidden histories and underrepresented issues often through unconventional ways of mediating art. Her recent collaborations include OverOverOver, an artist exchange between Detroit and Glasgow and BRUT Europe with artist Marija Nemcenko. She co-hosts the show ‘Radio Dacha’ on Subcity Radio, exploring the notion of the „East” through discussion and music. Biljana Puric is an independent researcher. She holds Masters Degrees in Film Aesthetics from the University of Oxford, and in Gender Studies from the Central European University. She has published peer-reviewed articles, along with art and film reviews and criticism, in Issues in Ethnology & Anthropology, ARTMargins, Journal of Curatorial Studies, New Eastern Europe, and Short Film Studies. Rebecca Vaughan is a Melbourne based curator and writer. Previously Rebecca was Museum Assistant and Administrator at the Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and Editorial Assistant at Perimeter Books, a small arts publishing imprint based in Melbourne. She holds a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne. < Participants Educational Program Programs >

Art and the Post-Pandemic Condition – an online curatorial program and support grant for art practitioners Open call: May 15th 2020 End of the open call June 15th 2020 Start of the program July 15th 2020 Practical information related to the program: Fee for the workshop is 450 euros Maximum number of applicants 20 WCSCD is launching a one-month online program from July 15th to August 15th reflecting on the post-pandemic condition that we are slowly entering into. This one month program hopes to provoke thinking, reflection and solidarity but also to serve as a collective annotation for our new reality. Through a series of workshops, the curatorial program will open discussions on how our work as artists and curators will be affected. What are some of the fundamental changes that we could address at this very moment to initiate that change? We are hoping to learn from Indigenous knowledge, small scale institutions, different species, notions of care and ways of staying connected from the past, the present and the future, finding gaps from where new relationships and encounters could emerge. While economic pressure forces nation-states to re-open we would like to pose urgent questions addressing the modes of working within the sphere of art that is deeply informed by neoliberal mechanisms. Amid fear of others, suffering and loss of lives, the pandemic has made us pause and to rethink our place in the world and our relationship to other human beings and species. We are hoping to initiate a series of workshops on how to facilitate different modes of working within the sphere of art from individual standpoints but also from a sense of belonging to a community. How can we organize ourselves and discuss different values publicly? How do we deal with the digitalized world imposed on us? Where is it still possible to find cracks for touch and proximity within a highly sanitized world? Many cultural producers are already familiar with different forms of insecurity and precarity. We will look at existing ways of working which are characterized by agility and resilience. A case in question is how small-scale visual arts organisations across the planet have developed methodologies which made it possible to keep running under the neoliberal economic regime. Another case is artists who have developed and maintained a practice without reverting to high production value. This is a good moment to explore unconventional sites and infrastructure that is in place and how they can be activated concerning art, from beaches and forests to libraries and schools. We see the post-pandemic condition as the beginning of a new struggle. It is a common struggle traversing the borders of nation-states, involving practitioners working with contemporary art having a variety of backgrounds. As online program practitioners from all geographies are welcome to apply. The mentors leading the program are Maria Lind, Natasa Petresin Bachelez and Biljana Ciric. Practical information related to the program: Fee for the workshop is 450 euros Maximum number of applicants 20 Application procedure Please send your bio or CV and a short reflection or statement related to the post-pandemic conditions from your perspective. The online sessions will be organized through Zoom and will require preparation, including the readings and different forms of exercises, both physical (what does that imply) and conceptual. There will be approximately three workshops led by the mentors per week and the duration of each session will be two hours. Besides fees for the mentors, part of the budget of the program will be distributed as a grant for three artists as a form of community support. Artists will be reached through the open call while selection panel will consist of program participants and mentors for grant Artists based in any former Yugoslav country are eligible to apply Support fund for artists is 500 euros. what.could.curating.do@gmail.com

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Lecture by Ivet Ćurlin / WHW / My Sweet Little Lamb, (everything we see can also be otherwise) Saša Tkačenko, Flags from WCSCD series, 2018 THE CURATORIAL COURSE WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE A PUBLIC TALK BY: IVET ĆURLIN (WHW) My Sweet Little Lamb, (everything we see can also be otherwise) MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART BELGRADE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8 2018 AT 6 PM In collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, the lecture within the series of public programs organized by WCSCD will be presented by Ivet Ćurlin — member of curatorial collective, What, How & for Whom/WHW. The series is designed to offer new and different perspectives on the theories and practices of exhibition-making. Lecture by Ivet Ćurlin entitled “My Sweet Little Lamb, (everything we see can also be otherwise)” will present the work of curatorial collective WHW through several curatorial projects concerned with continuous reconfiguration of the relationships between artistic and cultural production, authorship, collecting, history, display and politics, as well as the discuss the need for starting the new long-term educational program for young artists, called WHW Akademija. The focus will be the project My Sweet Little Lamb, (everything we see can also be otherwise) WHW co-curated in collaboration with Kathrin Rhomberg. After six exhibition episodes, taking place from November 2016 to May 2017 in independent art spaces, artists’ studios and private apartments in Zagreb, the project’s epilogue has been staged at The Showroom, London, in collaboration with Emily Pethick. Based on the Kontakt Art Collection, which includes seminal works by artists from Central, Eastern and South-East Europe from 1960s to the present, the project juxtaposed the collection’s canonical works with a number of historical and contemporary works in order to address and reframe some of the recurring themes that stem from the collection, such as radical utopianism, figure of dissident artist, questions of gendered bodies, political subjectivities and engagement, and the status of public space. Titled after a work by Croatian artist Mladen Stilinović (1947-2016), the project is inspired by his life-long anti-systematic artistic approach that searched for more autonomous ways of artistic production. His artistic practice that humorously engages with complex themes of ideology, work, money, pain and poverty, inspired many of WHW’s projects. ABOUT THE LECTURER: Ivet Ćurlin is member of curatorial collective, What, How & for Whom/WHW, formed in 1999 and based in Zagreb and Berlin. Besides Ivet, WHW’s members are curators Ana Dević, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović, and designer and publicist Dejan Kršić. WHW organizes a range of production, exhibitions and publishing projects and directs Gallery Nova in Zagreb. Since its first exhibition titled What, How & for Whom, on the occasion of 152nd anniversary of the Communist Manifesto, that took place in Zagreb in 2000, WHW curated numerous international projects, among which are Collective Creativity, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, 2005; 11th Istanbul Biennial What Keeps Mankind Alive?, Istanbul, 2009; One Needs to Live Self-Confidently…Watching, Croatian pavilion at 54th Venice Biennial, 2011. Recent projects by WHW include exhibition Really Useful Knowledge, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2014, My Sweet Little Lamb, (everything we see can also be otherwise), (co-curated with Kathrin Rhomberg), various locations in Zagreb, 2016/2017; Shadow Citizens, retrospective of Želimir Žilnik at Edith-Russ-Hausfür Medienkunst, Oldenburg, 2018, and On the Shoulders of Fallen Giants, The 2nd Industrial Art Biennial that took place this summer in Labin, Raša, Rijeka, Pula, Vodnjan. In fall 2018, WHW has started non-formal international educational program for young artists in Zagreb, called WHW Akademija. The WCSCD curatorial course and series of public lectures are initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric together with Supervizuelna. The lecture by Niels Van Tomme is made possible with the help of MoCAB and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with the additional support of Zepter Museum and Zepter Hotel. Project partners: The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade; GRAD—European Center for Culture and Debate; EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial, ’Novi Sad 2021 – European Capital of Culture’ Foundation and Zepter Museum. The project is supported by: the Goethe Institute in Belgrade; Istituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado; the Embassy of Sweden; the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; the Embassy of Ireland in Greece; the Embassy of Indonesia; the EU Info Centre; Pro Helvetia – Swiss Art Council; and galleries Eugster || Belgrade, HESTIA Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau, and Zepter Hotel, Royal Inn Hotel and CAR:GO. Media partners: EUNIC Serbia, RTS3. < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities What Could/Should the Institution Do by Ares Shporta Venue: Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art (14 Pariska Street) Date: October 5th 2019 18:00 Opened in 1952, Lumbardhi Cinema has been one of the two key cultural institutions in Prizren for the rest of the 20th century. A public space with an attendance of over 400,000 visitors for four decades, it was also known as a birthplace of festivals, most notably DokuFest. Following two attempts for demolition and privatisation in the following millennia, it was saved by civic initiatives and registered as a protected cultural landmark in 2015. Lumbardhi Foundation was established thereafter to continue the civic initiative, with the aim of managing and reviving the former cinema through an open process that included research, diverse programs, debates, friendships and alliances. Designed in a slow manner determined by the limited means of shaping an institution from a bottom-up initiative, the process has enabled an alternative form of institution-building. In his talk, Ares Shporta will present and discuss about the process that allowed the time and opportunity to put into questions issues like the function of public service institutions in the 21st century, the possibility of mission-driven structure in conditions of normalised instability and tailoring an institution in relation to its surrounding ecology. About Speaker: Ares Shporta is a cultural worker based in Kosovo. He completed his studies at the graduate program for Cultural Management at the Istanbul Bilgi University with a focus on cultural institutions and local cultural policy. Since 2015 he is the co-founding director of Lumbardhi Foundation where his work ranges from research and programming, to advocacy, infrastructure and institutional development within the framework of the revival of the former Lumbardhi Cinema. Shporta is also the chairman of the Network of Cultural Organisations in Prizren and the President of Kooperativa – Regional Platform for Culture. The event is free and open to the public. The WCSCD curatorial course and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. The lecture by Ares Shporta is generously supported by Heinrich Boll Stiftung < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Lumbung | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to be continued in 2021 with public program through lecture series The seventh talk in the 2020/21 series is titled: Lumbung by farid rakun Date: March 16, 2021 Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade / 10:00 pm Melbourne / 07:00 pm Shanghai / 6:00 am New York Venue: zoom link Meeting ID: 985 237 3109 Live stream/Facebook link ruangrupa, photo Gudskul/Jin Panji ruangrupa , a Jakarta-based artists’ collective, is in the middle of launching lumbung—a planetary network initiated to put particular values into practice, such as sharing, humour, generosity, independence and locally-anchored, to name a few. This process is also largely made possible by the collective’s mandate as the artistic directors of documenta fifteen (Kassel, DE, 2022), for which ruangrupa’s approach can be considered as finding ways to exercise our way of institutional practice—as opposed to mere critique. This session is a relaxed one (as much as a platform like Zoom would allow) where (at least) a member of ruangrupa, farid rakun , will be present and explain more about the processes described above. Hopefully, you will not only be able and interested to attend, but also take something out of the session and realised the possibility of practicing those very values in your own ways under your particular conditions afterwards. farid rakun, photo Gudskul/Jin Panji About Speaker Trained as an architect (B.Arch from Universitas Indonesia and M.Arch from Cranbrook Academy of Art), farid rakun wears different hats, dependent on who is asking. A visiting lecturer in the Architecture Department of Universitas Indonesia, he is also a part of the artists’ collective ruangrupa, with whom he co-curated TRANSaction: Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, NL. As an instigator, he has permeated various global institutions such as Centre Pompidou, La Biennale di Venezia, MMCA Seoul, Sharjah Biennial, Bienal de Sao Paulo, Harun Farocki Institut, Dutch Art Institute (DAI), Creative Time, Haute école d’art et de design (HEAD) Genève, and basis voor actuele kunst (BAK). He has worked for Jakarta Biennale in different capacities since 2013 and currently serves as its advisor. ruangrupa is a Jakarta-based collective established in 2000. It is a non-profit organization that strives to support the idea of art within urban and cultural context by involving artists and other disciplines such as social sciences, politics, technology, media, etc, to give critical observation and views towards Indonesian urban contemporary issues. ruangrupa also produce collaborative works in the form of art projects such as exhibition, festival, art lab, workshop, research, as well as book, magazine and online-journal publication. As an artists’ collective, ruangrupa has been involved in many collaborative and exchange projects, including participating in big exhibitions such as Gwangju Biennale (2002 & 2018), Istanbul Biennial (2005), Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane, 2012), Singapore Biennale (2011), São Paulo Biennial (2014), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya, 2016) and Cosmopolis at Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017). In 2016, ruangrupa curated TRANSaction: Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, NL. From 2015-18, ruangrupa co-developed a cultural platform Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem together with several artists’ collectives in Jakarta, located at Gudang Sarinah warehouse, Pancoran, South Jakarta. It is a cross-disciplinary space that aims to maintain, cultivate and establish an integrated support system for creative talents, diverse communities, and various institutions. It also aspires to be able to make connections and collaborate, to share knowledge and ideas, as well as to encourage critical thinking, creativity, and innovations. The results of these joint collaborations are open for public access—and presented with various exhibitions, festivals, workshops, discussions, film screenings, music concerts, and publications of journals. In 2018, learning from their experience establishing Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem and together with Serrum and Grafis Huru Hara, ruangrupa co-initiated GUDSKUL: contemporary art collective and ecosystem studies (or Gudskul, in short, pronounced similarly like “good school” in English). It is a public learning space established to practice an expanded understanding of collective values, such as equality, sharing, solidarity, friendship and togetherness. WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) was initiated and funded in 2018 in Belgrade as an educational platform around notions of curatorial. From 2020 WCSCD started to initiate its own curatorial inquiries and projects that should unpack above -mentioned complexities keeping educational component as a core to the WCSCD. The WCSCD curatorial program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. WCSCD 2020/2021 public program series has been done in collaboration with Division of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University and they co-stream all public lectures. Strategic media collaboration is done with Seecult and they will co-host all public lecture series. Project Partners Media Partner 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 >