Curatorial course for professionals at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.

CuratorLab is a one-year international curatorial course at Konstfack University of Arts, Stockholm, under the program direction of Joanna Warsza and guest lecturer Maria Lind. We are expanding the ideas of curating and the curatorial beyond the exhibition format, exploring radical approaches to engagement, debating pertinent issues of our times, having collective fun, and practicing horizontal learning. In the recent years we have worked on public programing with Tensta konsthall, f.ex. re-staging the Operaist Trial with the artist Rossella Biscotti, or co-editing a reader on love and revolution drawing on the legacy of a Bolshevik revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai together with artist Dora García and curator Maria Lind. CuratorLab is open to everybody with curiosity to challenge the new curatorial practices. We intend to built a group of participants with solid experience; a grounded interest and a sense of commitment in order to share a learning experience together.

Program director: Joanna Warsza

Guest lecturer: Maria Lind

Assistant Curator: Anastasia Shestak

Joanna Warsza is a Program Director of CuratorLab at Konstfack University of Arts in Stockholm since 2014, 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 55^th Venice Biennale and associate curator of the 7^th Berlin Biennale among others. In Spring 2020 together with Övül Ö. Durmusoglu she co-iniciated Die Balkone. Life, art, pandemic and proximity in windows and balconies of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin, where they both live. 

Maria Lind, Guest lecturer since 2014.
Maria Lind is a curator, writer and educator from Stockholm. She is currently the director of Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiruna. From 2020 to 2023 she was serving as the counsellor of culture at the embassy of Sweden, Moscow. She was the director of Stockholm’s Tensta Konsthall 2011-18, the artistic director of the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the director of the graduate program, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2008-2010) and director of Iaspis in Stockholm (2005-2007). From 2002-2004 she was the director of Kunstverein München and in 1998, co-curator of Europe’s itinerant biennial, Manifesta 2 in Luxembourg. In 2015 she curated Future Light for the first Vienna Biennial, and in 2019 she co-curated the Art Encounters Biennial in Timisoara.


Anastasia Shestak, curatorial assistant 2023/2024. Curator, researcher and educator currently based in Leipzig, Germany. With a background in visual studies and mediation, she is currently a student of Cultures of Curatorial MA program in HGB, Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst/ Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig.  

Hana Halilaj, curatorial assistant 2022/2023. Independent curator and a recent graduate of Curatorial Studies at CCS Bard. She lives and works in Prishtina and serves as advisor, mediator and curatorial assistant between CuratorLab and the 4^th Autostrada Biennale.

Vasco Forconi, curatorial assistant 2019/2022. Curator, researcher, and editor based in Rome. He currently teaches Curatorial Studies at NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome. In 2020 he was the recipient of the Premio Mosca (MiBAC, V-A-C Foundation, Moscow). He recently co-edited the first Italian translation of “The Undercommons” (Archive Books/Tamu Edizioni, 2021)

Matteo Lucchetti, Guest lecturer for 2020/2019. Curator, art historian, and writer. His main curatorial interests are focused on artistic practices that redefine the role of art and the artist in society. Since 2010, Lucchetti is chief curator, with Judith Wielander, the Visible project, a research endeavor and the first European biennial award devoted to socially engaged artistic practices in a global context, initiated and supported by Pistoletto Foundation, Biella and Fondazione Zegna, Trivero.

Judith Wielander, Guest lecturer for 2020/2019. An independent curator based in Brussels. Her main curatorial research is focusing on the intersection of Art and Social Engagement. She has been curator at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto from 2002 to 2010. Judith Wielander has initiated in 2009 in dialogue with Michelangelo Pistoletto the Visible Project and co-curates it since 2010 with Matteo Lucchetti.

Michele Masucci, Guest lecturer for 2018/2017. Artist, researcher and Ph.D. candidate at Karolinska Institutet and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, as well as translator of Italian political philosophy into Swedish, including Paolo Virnos 'Grammar of The Multitude'.

Anna Tomaszewska, Guest lecturer for 2016/2015. Curator, producer, researcher, former deputy director of the Polish Institute in Stockholm, where she was responsible for visual arts, architecture and design. Board member of Swedish organisation Mossutställningar, which focuses on public art.

Renée Padt, CuratorLab Program Director, 2008 to 2014. Born in the Netherlands and now based in Stockholm, Sweden, Renée Padt is a curator and producer in the fields of art, craft and design. With a background in museology and art history, she has produced numerous exhibitions and cultural events in museums and art institutions worldwide, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta11, The Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, and the Bauhaus in Dessau.  

Karina Ericsson Wärn, CuratorLab Program Director, 1999 to 2008. Lives and works in Stockholm and Paris. Vice-chancellor at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm since 2018. Curator and writer within the field of fashion, photography and contemporary art. Co-founder and former director of Galleri Gauss and Index-The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation.

Måns Wrange, founder and Program Director, 1999 to 2006. Artist, writer, curator and educator based in Stockholm. Since 2019 rector of the Oslo Academy of Fine Arts. From 2014 to 2017 he held a guest professorship at Stockholm University. From 2008 to 2014, Måns Wrange was rector of the Royal Institute of Art (Kungl. Konsthögskolan) in Stockholm, and from 1995 to 2008, he was first head of department and then professor at Konstfack – University College of Art, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. 

Guest lecturers:

Abdellah Karroum, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Andjeas Ejiksson, Anna Tomaszewska,  Andre Lepecki, Andrea Philips, Annie Fletcher, Annika Eriksson, Annika Enqvist, Annika Larsson , Anthony Huberman, Azat Sargsyan, Barbara London, Beatrice von Bismarck, Behzad Khosravi, Benjamin Noys, Binna Choi, Carles Guerra, Carol Tulloch, Charlotte Bydler, Charles Esche, Chris Dercon, Chus Martínez, Diana Baldon, Doreen Mende, Edi Muka, Ekaterina Kalinina, Elena Tzotzi, Elin Lundgren, Emily Roysdon, Ewa Majewska, Eva Gonzalez-Sancho, Fredrik Liew, Fredrik Svensk, Gabi Ngobo, Gavin Wade, Goldin + Senneby, Harm Rensink, Helena Selder, Isabel Löfgren, Janna Graham, Jesper Nordahl, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Kim West, Lars Bang Larsen, Laurel Ptak, Lena Jonson, Lívia Páldi, Lisa Rosendahl, Magdalena Malm, Marc Herbst, Maria Lantz, Marina Vishmidt, Mark Fisher, Markus Degerman, Marta Kuzma, Martí Manen, Martin Fritz, Martin Schibli, Mats Sternstadt, Mattin, Michele Masucci, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Nina Möntmann, Olaf Nielsen, Olav Westphalen, Olivia Plender, Pablo Lafuente, Patricia Reed, Paul O'Neill, Petra Bauer, Power Ekroth, Raimundas Malašauskas, Rasmus Nielsen, Rebecca Gordon Nesbit, Rick Lowe, Rossella Biscotti, Shahram Khosravi, Sinziana Ravini,Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, Sofia Victorino, Søren Grammel, Stealth.unlimited, Stefanie Hessler, Staffan Lundgren, Suhail Malik, Tai Shani, Tone, Warren Neidech, Zoran Eric

Current Year

The North. Curatorial projects with and from Umeå to Kiruna

For the 2023-2024 academic year, we invite you to join CuratorLab led by Joanna Warsza and Maria Lind for collective research and work in and with the north of Sweden. The area making up the region of Norrland covers 60% of the country, and it is populated by about 10% of out of 11 million people. It is part of Sápmi, the territory inhabited by the Sámi spanning across Fennoscandia, between Northern and Eastern Europe.

The Sámi are one of the main and few indigenous people who have been inhabiting Europe longer than anyone else, before national borders were established, and settler cultures became the norm. The area, which is rich in natural resources such as silver, iron ore and forests, was controlled, claimed and colonized by the Crown from the 14th century onwards, a form of exploitation that continues to this day. However, against many odds, Sámi traditional lifestyles, knowledge, craft and music have survived, and are developed and practiced across the north.

Today industrialisation is expanding, with new mines, large wind mill farms, and internet servers being established, while the climate change is palpable, causing problems such as new layers of thin ice preventing the reindeer from grazing. The north is a place where the politics of extraction meet the need to cultivate vernacular ways of being. What do these conditions mean for life in the region? What are the implications for the climate, the landscape, for the Sámi as well as for others living and working there? What can art and curating bring to the table, and how?

The course is realized in collaboration with Galleri Syster in Luleå, Havremagasinet in Boden, Konstmuseet i Norr in Kiruna and Bildmuseet at Umeå University and in dialogue with the institution's long commitment to Sámi artists and the questions of the north. A group of ten participants will travel to Umeå, Luleå, Jokkmokk, Boden, Kiruna and other places to meet with artists and other cultural practitioners. Among the discussion partners of the course are Anders Sunna and Katarina Pirak Sikku, Mariangela Mendez Prencke,  Anja Örn, Hans Sundvall, Ludvig Sjödin, Birgitta Lindström, Madelene Hansson and Henny Kvamsdal, Isak Anshelm and Linn Lindström, Mats Wikström, Elisabeth Pirak Kuoljokat, Lea Simma, Katarina Spik Skum, Inga-Wiktoria Påve, Åsa Simma and many others.

Ana Victoria Bruno
Silvia Colombo
Karin Erixon
Aleksandra Kędziorek
Sixten Liu
Kerstin Möller
Emma Pettersson Juntti
Foteini Salvaridi
Liselotte Winka
Fann Xu

2022-2023

Biennales of Resistance: a collaboration with the 4th Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo

For the academic year 2022/2023, we invite you to form the team of researchers and assistant curators for the 4th Autostrada Biennale, curated by Övül Ö. Durmusoglu and Joanna Warsza. Autostrada Biennale was established by two artists and a pedagogue in 2014 in Kosovo. As the only contemporary art institution in Prizren, it functions on two speeds: one is a physical exhibition taking place in the public space every two years, the second is a long-term educational center in the former KFOR military camp where the exhibition preparation process is open to the public, making the production of the artworks a form of learning and critical thinking.

Among the three hundred biennials in the world, there are biennales and biennales. Those second ones ‒ such as, in our belief, the Autostrada Biennale ‒ are more valuable to look at and work with from a critical, curatorial perspective. These have been called Biennales of Resistance by the political scientist Oliver Marchart and many have originated in the Global South such as the early Havana Biennial 1978, the Gwangju Biennale after the democratic uprising in South Korea in 1980, the short-lived Johannesburg Biennale after the end of apartheid in 1994, or the Istanbul Biennale after the 1980 military intervention in Turkey. Some of their aims were to de-westernize the art canon, decenter cartographies, shake legitimized institutional art, or create counter-hegemonic models. Autostrada Biennale responds to some of these needs, from the position of the Western Balkans. Kosovo is among the very few countries in Europe where a visa is still needed to travel in the EU, it is a post-war political entity only partially recognized, a corner where different ethnicities and religions breathe side-by-side, and finally, it is a place where the language of contemporary art is needed as a form of resilience and recovery.

The participants are invited to join, shape and reflect on the process of biennale-making in Prizren, working on the conceptualization, contextualisation and production of the context-responsive works and the public program in close collaboration with the curators, artists, directors, education and production teams. The participants are also encouraged to propose their own public and/or education program around the opening of the biennale in June 2023, as well as share educational tools in collaboration with young curators working in Kosovo and the Western Balkan region and with the University of Prishtina and Academy of Fine Art.

Archeology of a Profession. The legacy of some less known ground-breaking curators.

CuratorLab embarks on a year-long project tracing the professional archaeology of some of the senior ground-breaking curators. We will dig into a number of instrumental exhibitions and other projects, which on the one hand introduced decolonial and other non-hegemonic approaches in Sweden, and on the other hand anti-monumental curating in the public realm in Europe and the US. The projects will lead us to practitioners who have made a mark on both art and curating of their time, and still remain less known. It will culminate with a book and an exhibition honoring their legacy in May 2021 in Stockholm.

Book led by Maria Lind. Some case studies in Sweden.

We will meet and interview curators and institutional directors such as Elisabet Haglund (Kulturhuset in Stockholm and Borås Konstmuseum) Gunilla Lundahl (the magazine Form and independent projects), Jan-Erik Lundström (Fotografiska museet and Bildmuseet in Umeå) and Carlos Capelán (independent projects). We will conduct archival research connected to their work.

Book led by Joanna Warsza. Working title: Early days of Public Art. 

What is public and counter-public in public art? How have the notions of situated or embedded knowledge changed over the years? How does extractivist mind-set penetrate some of so-called participatory projects and how to dehegemonise art outside of the museum walls? We will study some worldwide examples of pioneer exhibitions of public art, interview the curators and artists, digitalize and problematize their legacies. We will work on legendary exhibitions and curatorial projects like Culture in Action curated by Mary Jane Jacob in 1993 in Chicago; Sonsbeek 93 curated by Valerie Smith; Endlichkeit der Freiheit, an exhibition started by Heiner Müller and Rebecca Horn on both sides of Berlin wall and realized after it felt down; Construction in Process, an artist-initiated site-specific exhibition in Łódz in the early 80s, and the Skulptur Projekte Münster, among others.

The research includes live presentations/interviews with forerunning curators, research trips, meetings, creative writing workshops, archival work and the final presentation in May.

___

An Archaeology of a Profession. A Series of Portraits of Exhibitions and Curators

CuratorLab 2020/2021 Final Online Programme, 26-27 May 2021 

Presented by: Anna Mikaela Ekstrand, Giulia Floris, Edy Fung, Julius Lehmann, Marc Navarro, Simina Neagu, Hanna Nordell, Tomek Pawłowski-Jarmołajew, Marja Rautaharju, Erik Sandberg 

26 May, 18:00-19:30 | Assuming Asymmetries. Conversations on Curating Public Art Projects of the 1980s and 1990s. Moderated by Joanna Warsza 

27 May, 18:00-19:30 | Archeology of a Profession in Sweden. Curating Beyond the Mainstream with Carlos Capelán, Elisabet Haglund, Gunilla Lundahl, and Jan-Erik Lundström. Moderated by Maria Lind 

The conversations will be live-streamed on CuratorLab Facebook page

More information and full program here

Anna Mikaela Ekstrand

Edy Fung

Erik Sandberg

Giulia Floris

Hanna Nordell

Julius Lehmann

Marc Navarro Fornos

Marja Rautaharju

Raluca-Simina Neagu

In collaboration with:

Tomek Pawłowski Jarmołajew (On Construction in process)

Socially Engaged Curating in Post-Democratic Times. 

In Fall 2019 CuratorLab participants acted as advocates for socially engaged practices shortlisted for the 2019 Visible Award. We tested advocacy as a form of care and responsibility defending artistic projects of Richard Bell, Cooking Sections, Luke Ching, Forensic Architecture, Daniel Godínez-Nivón, Trampoline House, Emily Jacir, Marisa Morán Jahn, Otobong Nkanga,  Jasmeen Patheja. This experience made us raise the question of how can art institutions and practices be reformatted beyond display towards agency and engagement?

Over the course of the Covid-19 crisis, our frenzied world has morphed into a global stagnation. The sweet fruits of connectivity, cheap travel, and breakneck production and consumption have been put on hold overnight. In this turbulent time, we ask ourselves: what is indispensable for Translocal solidarity and collective action? Which materials, ways of doing, and values can be prioritized over national or supranational apparatuses, and which strategies of curation, activation, and conservation can we craft as artists and curators?

CuratorLab final on-line public programme: Notes on Curating Socially Engaged Art

Together with the curators of the Visible Project (Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander) and the scholar Andrea Phillips, we look back and from there forwards at the advocacy as curatorial practice and at ways of advancing the discourse around curating socially engaged art.

Schedule:

From an Award to a Long-Term Support Structure?

Live conversation Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander (Visible Project) with CuratorLab, Wednesday, 03 June - watch it online

Democracy and Dramaturgy: Modern Justice and Socially Engaged Artistic Practices

Andrea Phillips, part of Konstfack common seminar in rethinking research practices in Art, Technology and Design, Thursday, 04 June - watch it online

In collaboration with Visible Project (Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto/Fondazione Zegna), Public Art Agency Sweden, and Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm.

Read more about the online program and the contents of the two conversations here

Propositions on Translocal Solidarity (Working Title)

Expanding on the relationships, experiences and ideas we developed during the Visible Temporary Parliament in 2019, we propose translocal solidarity as a way of seeing that advances the discourse around socially engaged art. Mobilised at a time of turbulence and change, translocal solidarity is a way to embody affect and commitment in transversal ways: moving away from nationality or ethnicity as benchmarks of belonging, and towards participation and community membership as guiding principles. Propositions on Translocal Solidarity is divided into three chapters: letters, interdisciplinary conversations, and scores, which together form a protocol for curating, archiving and sustaining socially engaged practices. It also includes a foreword and annotations, which link the history of curating socially engaged art with the propositions of this publication and make connections between the artistic practices. Through mobilizing slow reflection, reciprocity, and participation, the publication unpacks key questions specific to the curatorial field and its capacity to create support structures that can think beyond extraction and move towards long-term engagement. We understand this book as an accessible medium through which to build solidarity from art outwards, turning our attention to urgent issues of our time, making alliances and disseminating artistic practices, discourse and strategies across boundaries that bodies cannot otherwise cross.

With contributions by Richard Bell and Gary Folley, Cooking Sections and Zoey Todd, Luke Ching, Forensic Architecture, Daniel Godínez-Nivón, Morten Goll, Tone Olaf (Trampoline House) and Shahram Khosravi, Emily Jacir, Marisa Morán Jahn and Natalicia Tracy, Otobong Nkanga, Jasmeen Patheja, Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander, Andrea Phillips, and CuratorLab 2019 participants.

Throughout the academic year, 2018-2019, CuratorLab participants worked alongside the curators Maria Lind and Cecilia Widenheim developing the mediation and public programme for the exhibition, Migration: Traces in an Art Collection, shown at Tensta konsthall and Malmö Konstmuseum in spring and autumn 2019. The starting point of the research was a question of how to work curatorially with public art collections by responding to notions of the public, publicness, the commons, the counter-public, the private, the shared, and the owned. Every participant was engaged in conceptual and hands-on research on the third biggest collection of ‘Nordic’ art in Sweden, from visiting its storage, having a conversation with the conservators and technicians, to develop their own projects. The research began by considering an event in 1945, when the staff of Southern Sweden’s largest museum, Malmö Museer, transformed the institution into a refugee center for those who had survived concentration camps in Germany and had come to Sweden on so-called ‘white buses’. From there, the participants outlined research topics and readings, asking what the role of the curator is in actualising and problematising collections, while also developing the exhibition’s programme, which considered exile, migration, displacement, and art travels in the globalised world.

Throughout the academic year 2016/2017 we have been working together with curator Maria Lind and writer Michele Mascucci on re-staging The Trial / Il Processo (2010/2017), a performative piece by Italian artist Rossella Biscotti, based on the original courtroom recordings from the 1982–84 trial of members of Autonomia Operaia in Rome. CuratorLab organised related research, reading groups, and meetings, prepared the transcripts and finally enacted The Trial at Tensta konsthall in Stockholm first as an open rehearsal, and then as a performance at the Hamburger Banhof in Berlin.

2016–2015

Iaspis Open House Spring 2016 curated by CuratorLab

This edition of the Open House took on the concept of openness, hospitality, transparency and vulnerability, making access not only to the artists’ studios, but the institution as such and bringing the new public in-house. In a series of day and night events Open House presented the work in progress of Iaspis artists in residence program, as well as hosted the performative interventions of the Stockholm emerging scene, with its collectives contributing with food, self-made publication on demand, and a music repertoire. The main idea was to refer to the Swedish tradition of so-called Open House, when people organize a party open to everybody, an exhibition of their domicile, bringing the world into their life, and their life to the world.

When the Iaspis programme opens the doors of its studio residencies for a day, it is an invitation to take part in the on-going artistic processes. The Iaspis studio programmme’s focus is ‘research based’; a place of investigative activity that offers time off from the production line of making. The grant holders can spend their time at the residency to reflect, explore and enter into unconditional processes without the need for results. They initiate new projects in local partnerships or work on on-going projects.

The studio and the context created by the Iaspis programmme is in itself a platform for informal and formal meetings with Swedish and international artists, curators, writers and with professional audiences. The programme’s residence activities are therefore about process itself, with the aim to add to a greater internationalization of the applied and visual art scene in Sweden.

Iaspis grant holders March 2016
Azadeh Fatehrad, Tehran/London; Ayesha Sultana, Dhaka; Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Berlin/Montreal; Cecilia Hultman Sundsvall/Stockholm; Isak Sundström, Stockholm; Jenny Lindblom, Eskilstuna/Amsterdam; Mafune Gonjo, Strängnäs; Ruangrupa Arts Laboratory division (ArtLab), Jakarta; Vladimir Nikolić, Belgrade; Maria Nilsson Waller, Göteborg

The International Dance Programme, KID 
Maria Nilsson Waller, Göteborg

Cinthya Oliveira Cardosa Lana

Jessica Carden

Luisa Santos 

Michela Sacchetto

Paul Purgas

Sofia Mavroudis 

Tiffany Boyle

Vera Mlechevska

Carolina Rito

Corina Oprea

Isabel Löfgren

Judith Souriau

Milena Placentile

Misbah Deeb

Valerio Del Baglivo

Aimar Arriola

Alexa Griffith Winton

Diana Kaur

Maija Rudovska

Marina Noronha

Michael Dominic Capio

Pádraic E. Moore

Tina Hansson

2009–2008

Adnan Yildiz

Christian Alandete

Elisabeth Byre

Lu Tai-Ju

2007–2006

2006–2005

2005–2004

2004–2002

Balancing Acts, took place at the Centre Culturel Suédois (CCS), Paris in 2004 and included the artists Gunilla Klingberg, Felix Gmelin, Lars Siltberg, Johan Thurfjel, Amanda Cadell, Luca Frei and Kajsa Dahlberg. 

Frans-Josef Petersson

Ikko Yokoyama

Marianna Garin

Robert Stasinski

2002–2000

2000–1999

The first ever class to graduate from CuratorLab at Konstfack showed their exhibition-projects under one and the same roof at Färgfabriken. The exhibition was called, Lost in Space and displayed the works of seventeen artists from different parts of Sweden and from Norway. The title, Lost in Space, does not refer to outer space as much as to the question of accessibility of space here on Earth.

The title also alluded to the current situation for young contemporary arts practitioners, namely, the lack of spaces to exhibit and to reside in. While Lost in Spacewas one exhibition, it had five different components, since five curators made selections of artworks and artists with regard to their own ideas and projects. A catalogue produced for the show presented the works and curatorial ideas behind the exhibition.

Eva Broberg 

Karin Faxén

Niklas Östholm 

Pia Kristoffersson

Power Ekroth

CuratorLab call for applications 2024/25

CuratorLab at MINT Stockholm.

For the 2024-2025 academic year, we invite you to join CuratorLab for collective research and work in collaboration with MINT Stockholm.

Mint operates in the basement of the Workers' Educational Association in Stockholm (ABF). During the 1960s it functioned as an important center for transdisciplinary culture in Sweden and internationally, hosting an art gallery, a jazz club, an experimental sound studio, a progressive cinema and more. Building on the legacy of the experimental sound history from this period, Mint invites CuratorLab participants to develop projects where visual art and sound art are linked and explored. Together with invited experts, we will during the course create a series of projects that will explore and produce ephemeral listening sessions, performances, publications and investigate the politics of listening.

Mint is a non-profit exhibition space situated in the Workers' Educational Association in central Stockholm, initiated in 2019 by curators Emily Fahlén and Asrin Haidari. Focusing on contemporary art and poetry, Mint is embracing experimental practices, cross-generational encounters and site-specific interventions. As the practice of a museum relates to – and is in dialogue with – its collection, Mint allows its program to be inspired and directed by the history of the building and its events, struggles, organizations and cultural expressions.

The course will be realized in collaboration with MINT and led by the guest lecturer Emily Fahlén and the new CuratorLab Course Director.

About CuratorLab
CuratorLab is a one-year international curatorial course at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. We are exploring radical approaches to engagement, contributing to the pertinent conversations of our times, practicing curating beyond exhibition making and applying horizontal learning. One of our leading questions is how to understand—paraphrasing Audre Lorde—our interdependence in relation to our own individual power and creativity? Thus, every year we work on one common topic where everyone contributes in an own way. CuratorLab is open for everyone interested in collective curatorial work, thinking out of the box, and keen to form a solid research group sharing the language of art.

In recent years we performed advocacy as a curatorial form at the Visible Temporary Parliament; co-edited a reader on love and revolution in the legacy of the Bolshevik revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai and re-staged the "Operaist Trial 1977–78" with the artist Rossella Biscotti. We welcome you to join forces with us in this endeavor!

How to apply
–Apply here (for Swedish speaking applicants apply here)
–Upload files here
–Application deadline: January 15, 2024. More information available here and here.

More info here and here.

2021–2020

Archeology of a Profession. The legacy of some less known ground-breaking curators.

CuratorLab embarks on a year-long project tracing the professional archaeology of some of the senior ground-breaking curators. We will dig into a number of instrumental exhibitions and other projects, which on the one hand introduced decolonial and other non-hegemonic approaches in Sweden, and on the other hand anti-monumental curating in the public realm in Europe and the US. The projects will lead us to practitioners who have made a mark on both art and curating of their time, and still remain less known. It will culminate with a book and an exhibition honoring their legacy in May 2021 in Stockholm.

Book led by Maria Lind. Some case studies in Sweden.

We will meet and interview curators and institutional directors such as Elisabet Haglund (Kulturhuset in Stockholm and Borås Konstmuseum) Gunilla Lundahl (the magazine Form and independent projects), Jan-Erik Lundström (Fotografiska museet and Bildmuseet in Umeå) and Carlos Capelán (independent projects). We will conduct archival research connected to their work.

Book led by Joanna Warsza. Working title: Early days of Public Art. 

What is public and counter-public in public art? How have the notions of situated or embedded knowledge changed over the years? How does extractivist mind-set penetrate some of so-called participatory projects and how to dehegemonise art outside of the museum walls? We will study some worldwide examples of pioneer exhibitions of public art, interview the curators and artists, digitalize and problematize their legacies. We will work on legendary exhibitions and curatorial projects like Culture in Action curated by Mary Jane Jacob in 1993 in Chicago; Sonsbeek 93 curated by Valerie Smith; Endlichkeit der Freiheit, an exhibition started by Heiner Müller and Rebecca Horn on both sides of Berlin wall and realized after it felt down; Construction in Process, an artist-initiated site-specific exhibition in Łódz in the early 80s, and the Skulptur Projekte Münster, among others.

The research includes live presentations/interviews with forerunning curators, research trips, meetings, creative writing workshops, archival work and the final presentation in May.

Anna Mikaela Ekstrand

Edy Fung

Erik Sandberg

Giulia Floris

Hanna Nordell

Julius Lehmann

Marc Navarro Fornos

Marja Rautaharju

Raluca-Simina Neagu

In collaboration with:

On Swedish case studies: Paulina Sokolow

On Construction in process: Tomek Pawłowski Jarmołajew

Washed Out curated by Corina Oprea, Isabel Löfgren, Judith Souriau, Milena Placentile, and Valerio Del Baglivo

CuratorLab call for applications 2022/23
Biennales of Resistance: A collaboration with the 4th Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo

For the academic year 2022/2023, we invite you to form the team of researchers and assistant curators for the 4th Autostrada Biennale, curated by Övül Ö. Durmusoglu and Joanna Warsza. Autostrada Biennale was established by two artists and a pedagogue in 2014 in Kosovo. As the only contemporary art institution in Prizren, it functions on two speeds: one is a physical exhibition taking place in the public space every two years, the second is a long-term educational center in the former KFOR military camp where the exhibition preparation process is open to the public, making the production of the artworks a form of learning and critical thinking.

Among the three hundred biennials in the world, there are biennales and biennales. Those second ones—such as, in our belief, the Autostrada Biennale—are more valuable to look at and work with from a critical, curatorial perspective. These have been called Biennales of Resistance by the political scientist Oliver Marchart and many have originated in the Global South such as the early Havana Biennial 1978, the Gwangju Biennale after the democratic uprising in South Korea in 1980, the short-lived Johannesburg Biennale after the end of apartheid in 1994, or the Istanbul Biennale after the 1980 military intervention in Turkey. Some of their aims were to de-westernize the art canon, decenter cartographies, shake legitimized institutional art, or create counter-hegemonic models. Autostrada Biennale responds to some of these needs, from the position of the Western Balkans. Kosovo is among the very few countries in Europe where a visa is still needed to travel in the EU, it is a post-war political entity only partially recognized, a corner where different ethnicities and religions breathe side-by-side, and finally, it is a place where the language of contemporary art is needed as a form of resilience and recovery.

The participants are invited to join, shape and reflect on the process of biennale-making in Prizren, working on the conceptualization, contextualisation and production of the context-responsive works and the public program in close collaboration with the curators, artists, directors, education and production teams. The participants are also encouraged to propose their own public and/or education program around the opening of the biennale in June 2023, as well as share educational tools in collaboration with young curators working in Kosovo and the Western Balkan region and with the University of Prishtina and Academy of Fine Art.

We will meet four times per year for 10-day sessions in Stockholm, in autumn, winter, spring, and early summer, including two trips to Kosovo, with additional online meetings in-between the sessions.

You do not need to be based in Stockholm, however attendance during all the sessions is necessary.

Course director: Joanna Warsza, Guest lecturers: Övül Ö. Durmusoglu, Maria Lind
Guest seminars: Vatra Abrashi & Leutrim Fishekqiu, Defne Ayas & Natasha Ginwala, Olivier Marchart, Lisa Rosenthal, and many others.
Curatorial assistant: Vasco Forconi

Check CuratorLab website as a reference for past group projects: www.curatorlab.se

Deadline for applications is January 17, 2022. To apply go to Konstfack website.

Contact

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