Unannounced Voices: Curatorial Practice and Changing Institutions

by Zdenka Badovinac

Alternative forms of curatorial and institutional work suitable to our novel conditions, when the relationship between physical and online work must be revised.

In our current era of global pandemic and violent political upheaval, the question must be asked: What is our future and whose voices will announce it? These can only be situated voices, each with its own body and space, formed through dialogue within their own communities and in reaction and resistance to dominant discourses. Museum director, curator, and writer Zdenka Badovinac argues that these situated voices of people, artworks, and exhibitions, rooted in the local, can bring incisive, productive change. The call of these voices, in rethinking art, curation, and institutions, is the subject of this powerful essay.

64 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

Reviews

[Jovanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for something inspiring in terms of curatorial practice and thought and found this helpful to read through. Overall, thoughts: it was written mid-pandemic in 2022, and it sounds somewhat romantic, as many of the hopefulness in art that we had at that time (that it was urgent and happening improvised in the streets, a sense of "togetherness" with global collaborators on Zoom meeting rooms, the need to share physical space with others, interdependence) somehow went back to normal after things opened up.

But she references Donna Haraway's idea of "situated knowledges" as the types and varieties of knowledge that emerge from the different intersections of where we are members (race, class, sexual, political, etc.) at the local and translocal level. In turn, "situated curatorial practice" is that which pays attention to their local context and what might be needed for each place.