Whether you work at an institution or independently, you know how challenging and rewarding curating can be. You also know how important it is to connect with your peers and share your experiences.

On Saturday 27 May, at Slipvillan, you are invited to a full-day programme with discussions on the working realities of curators, workshops for knowledge exchange, and space for care and support. Don’t miss “LULL”, a massage and live piano experience, nor the Speed-dating for Curators & Collaborators, where you can meet potential partners for your future projects (open to all art professionals).

Space is limited, so book your tickets now for each of the activities you want to take part in. We look forward to seeing you!

Click here to book your tickets

Schedule

10:00–10:05
Welcome! Sarah Rodrigues
Dedicated to art curators, a day to discuss the joys and challenges of your profession, learn from your peers, and find new collaborators!

10:05–10:15
Short Introduction to Slipvillan. Rikard Fåhraeus
Slipvillan is a cultural centre on Långholmen in Stockholm:
https://slipvillan.org/

10:15–12:00
The Realities of Curating Art: A Conversation with Curators
Moderator: Sarah Rodrigues

What do the everyday working realities of art curators look like? What are the pains and pleasures? What are the differences between working in different contexts, such as in a museum, a gallery, an artist-run space, or independently? What are the similarities? In this intimate conversation, we will hear the personal experiences of professional art curators working from different angles of the Swedish art landscape. We then open the conversation to all participants and together we will discuss: How can we support each other?
Participants: Jonas Kleerup, Nina Øverli, Masoud Shahsavari, Laetitia Deschamps, and Richard Julin.

12:00–13:00
Lunch

13:00–14:00
Workshop: Creative Business Incubator
Martin Larsson from Katapult (Subtopia)
During the workshop we will cover topics like: how can I earn more money; how can I achieve a better work/life balance; who is actually my target group (if I get to choose…); who do I want to become. Mixing small and big group exercises, we will explore what we can do individually and/or together.

14:15–15:15
Talk: Can Refusal be a form of Passion for Art?
Michele Masucci
Under current conditions, art, understood as a fundamental social necessity, is contingent on the exploitation of cultural workers’ productive capacity. The conditions have become critical for many actors within art after decades of neoliberal austerity with the gradual withdrawal of progressive public programmes.
Commendable efforts are constantly made to address systematic inequalities and scarcities; however, the general systemic tendency is towards an increased attack on the self-determinacy of art through the instrumentalisation of resources. What does refusal and withdrawal entail in a field that in many respects is self-initiated and driven by passion?

15:30–16:30
Discussion: Becoming self-organised 4.0
Moderator: Sona Stepanyan
Focusing on the Swedish Curators’ Association and other experiences of self-organising in the curating profession around 2000-2020s in Sweden, the conversation reveals personal experiences of four curators. How the experience of self-organising is understood by the participants themselves, and how it correlates with the current and subsequent curatorial lifeworld, as a place of human actions, concerns, emotions.
Moderator: Sona Stepanyan
Participants: Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Power Ekroth, Marianna Garin, and Anna Johansson.

16:30–17:00
Fika Break

17:00–18:30
Workshop: CV Group Roleplay
Emmeli Person
How do you perform yourself as a graspable, movable, flexible node in the cherrypicking artfield? Put your ’good worker’ hat on, it is time for a workshop about our meritocratic selves. Navigating through the containers of CVs, websites and what’s your instagram, we look at counter-strategies for the put-the-selfon-the-shelf-logistics. Feeding our experiences of good worker performances into a collective script, the workshop takes a role-playing format as we generate a strategy for future CVs, to counter-verify, counter-value, and be counter-vague.

20:00–21:30
Workshop: “Engage & Release” – Somatic Dance for Curators
Carla Abrahamsen & Sara Endler
A gentle and playful movement exploration of pressure, effort, force and timing. What happens when we become aware of the weight of our bodies and our movement efforts? Could ease in our movements offer ease to our mind? What is created in the room when we intentionally move and pause? Together we will gesture what limits and expands us, as we dive into the somatic movement landscapes of our tissues. No previous experience needed; all you need is your body and comfortable clothes.

21:30–23:00
Speed-dating: Curators & Collaborators
Sarah Rodrigues
This is your chance to network with professionals in your field! Sculptors, musicians, dancers, architects, designers, writers, illustrators, actors, photographers, filmmakers, and all art professionals of the creative industries are warmly welcome! Drinks and snacks provided!

13:00–18:00
“LULL”
Massage & Live Piano Experience
Renata Estevez & Sofia Nystrand
(Vargkvint)
In parallel to discussions and workshops taking place below, we welcome you to the “Care Room” upstairs to a sensorial experience of massage and live piano.
The pressures of working in the art world can be overwhelming and isolating. This space allows you to come into contact with your own vulnerability with compassion, to enable healing and reconnection with the self by harmonising energetic flows, and liberating blocked emotions and movements of the body. Carrying you in this process is somatic psychotherapist, Renata Estevez, and musician, Sofia Nystrand (Vargkvint).
Curated by Sarah Rodrigues
Lighting design: Ines Bartl

Participants

Read more about the particpants:

Participants – Art Curators Day

Sponsors and support

Sponsored by: Stockholm University, Swedish Curators Association, Slipvillan.
Graphic Design: Thomas Bush

The event will be video and sound recorded by Erik He.

About the MA

The International Master's Programme in Curating, including Art, Management and Law is a collaboration between Art History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics and the schools of Business and Law, together with prominent art institutions in Stockholm.

Learn more