Curatorial Strategies in Times of Exception. A Latin American Case

ANDREA GIUNTA (AUTOR)

Kassel

Conferencia; Aesthetic Dimensions of the Political. Art, Activism, Participatio; 2022

Kasse Universitat

ABSTRACTWe have not returned to normality after the global isolation imposed by Covid 19 and a context of war once again plunges humanity, and also the art scene, into turbulent times. During 2020, as Chief Curator of the Mercosul Biennial (Porto Alegre, Brazil) whose inauguration, planned for April 16, was suspended, I had to rethink my curatorial practices. These were involved in an emergency context that required the curatorial and the biennial teams to focus on designing strategies to move the face-to-face biennial to a virtual format. The dynamic in which we were involved has points of contact with activism: how to intervene in a volatile context that requires evaluating the situation and making decisions. It was a biennial centered on the concept of the feminine(s), of feminism, and on the inscription of non-normative sensitivities. A biennial that proposed to intercept the excluding white and patriarchal canon of art from a wide representation of Afro-Latin American artists and artists linked to the original communities of America, to the indigenous communities. In this conference I will present the biennial, the circumstances surrounding it and the strategies we designed based on the context of the pandemic. As I had never experienced before, curatorial practices were practices of caring. I aspire to share how we experienced that exceptional time from a Latin American biennial and the strategies we designed. I believe that this is knowledge that is valuable in this new emergency time.