The Autumn School of Curating #5
The Autumn School of Curating is an engaging seven-day seminar led by Xiaoyu Weng, exploring the cutting-edge realm of today´s curatorial practices. The seminar aims to give young curators access to an international platform for dialogue, knowledge exchange and learning.
The seminar is free of charge and open to international candidates. The organizers will cover accommodation costs for the sessions scheduled in Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara from November 13 to 19, 2023, as well as transport costs from Cluj-Napoca to Timișoara on November 15, 2023.
This year’s edition includes working sessions with Xiaoyu Weng, one of the most thought-provoking contemporary curators of our time. It will include public talks, as well as meetings and lectures with artists, curators and other guests, studio visits and exhibition tours in both cities: Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara, Romania.
Read the official Rules and Regulations before applying.
For A Multitude of Futures
Argument
The world is dramatically split between technological optimism, which assures that technological progress can revert and prevent further environmental deterioration from climate change and the human body can be endlessly perfected and even achieve immortality, and the nihilism of the imminent catastrophic unclear threat and dread of annihilation by machines via automation and artificial intelligence.
How can we overcome a determinist technological way of thinking about the future?
Considering science and technology not as the frontier of discoveries, but as something already embedded in many cosmologies and forms of intelligence, philosopher Yuk Hui proposes to “recosmicize the Earth” by rediscovering a techno-diversity, a multiplicity of cosmotechnics characterized by different dynamics between the cosmos, the moral and the technical. Multiple localities and communities, through the organizing of collective projects, hold the capacity to re-invent their own technological futures.
Leader of the school
Weng Xiaoyu is a curator and writer based in New York.
Her curatorial and writing practices focus on the impact of globalization, identity, and decolonization, as well as the intersection of art, science, and technology. Most recently, she was the Carol and Morton Rapp Curator, and head of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, Canada. Previously, she was The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Associate Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where she curated highly acclaimed exhibitions Tales of Our Time (2016–17) and One Hand Clapping (2018). Featuring newly commissioned artworks by thirteen artists and artist collectives, the exhibitions challenge myths of identity and nation-state constructions.
In 2018-2019, Weng served as the curator of the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art in Yekaterinburg, Russia. The biennial was awarded the “Best Exhibition of the Year” by the Art Newspaper Russia. Weng was the director and curator of Asia Programs at Kadist Art Foundation (Paris/San Francisco, 2010-2015). She continues to serve as a program and collection advisor for the Foundation. She writes regularly on contemporary art and visual culture and has published in various periodicals and catalogs.
Extensive, free-of-charge seminar dedicated to international emerging curators.
Applications have closed.
The students selected to participate in the programme are:
Lyah Benarroch, Andreea Cărăușu, Donika Cina, Diren Anil Demir, Jorge Esda, Alexa-Karina Ganea, Erfan Ghiasi, Olivia Gilmore, Una Mathiesen Gjerde, Andreea Goța, Taylor Hall, Wenlong Huang, Andres Milan Lara, Alice Minervini, Gavril Pop, Lucia Sabino, Yutong Shi, Sarah Johanna Theurer, Patrycja Wojciechowska, Xin Xiong.
Mindmap 2023 edition
About the organizers
Cluj Cultural Centre
The Clujean Cultural Centre is a non-governmental organisation for culture and sustainable development.
The Centre has 117 members: cultural institutions and organisations, universities, civil society and business associations, local and county administration in Cluj.
The Centre’s network also includes 25 schools in the Community of Schools, 12 municipalities in the Remarkable Romania network, 32 European cities in the Culture Next network and more than 60 national and international partners.
The Centre manages programmes to develop the cultural sector and increase the impact of culture in society, in the fields of education, health and well-being, urban and rural development.
Art Encounters Foundation
Art Encounters Foundation is an independent cultural initiative, founded in 2015, oriented towards supporting the contemporary art scene in Romania. The Foundation’s activities follow three main directions:
- organizing the Art Encounters Biennial and the permanent exhibitions program
- fostering education and audience development through public programs
- developing a solid series of artistic and curatorial residencies.
The vision of the Art Encounters Foundation is to become a meeting point for people, ideas, cultures, communities, and to create an open platform for contemporary art in connection with both the city of Timișoara and the global art scene. The public is encouraged to explore the field of art and to engage in a permanent knowledge exchange.
Timeline
Cluj-Napoca
Networking event
Opening Public Talk
Working sessions
Travel Cluj → Timișoara
Timișoara
Working sessions
Closing Public talk
Networking event
Fees and other costs
There is no admission fee and no participation fee.
Travel from Cluj to Timișoara will be provided by the organizers.
Accommodation will be provided by the organizers.
The organizers can also provide suggestions and can mediate reservations if needed.
Target participants
Young professionals in the field of curating and/or writing, with at least 3 years’ experience.
Registration period
September 07 – October 6, 2023
The selected participants will be announced by October 10, 2023.
Language
The courses will be held in English.
How to apply
In order to apply, please fill in the online form with your details, a motivation letter and a narrative biography, stating your interest in this year’s topic of the Autumn School of Curating.
Read more information about the Open Call in the official Rules and Regulations.
Registrations have ended on October 6, 2023, 11:59 PM.
The EEA and Norwegian grants are Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway’s contribution to a green, competitive and inclusive Europe. There are two overarching objectives: to reduce economic and social disparities in Europe and to strengthen bilateral relations between the donor countries and the 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltic States.
The three donor states cooperate closely with the EU under the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. Between 1994 and 2014, donor states contributed €3.3 billion through consecutive grant schemes. For the period 2014-2021, EEA and Norwegian grants amount to €2.8 billion.
More details are available at: www.eeagrants.org and www.eeagrants.ro.
