25–27 June 2021
Co-organiser
Zurich, Hong Kong, Online
https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/400646/situated-knowledges-art-and-curating-on-the-move
Co-organiser of a Shared Campus programme connecting Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, with the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich,
25–27 June 2021.
The programme was led by Dorothee Richter of Zurich University of the Arts and Cedric Maridet of Hong Kong Baptist University. Organisation and coordination were undertaken by Ronald Kolb at Zurich University of the Arts.
The programme was documented and extended through OnCurating, Issue 53: Situated Knowledges—Curating and Art on the Move, edited by Ronald Kolb and Dorothee Richter and published in June 2022.
Contributors included Lucy Steeds, John Tain, Michael Asbury, Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, Bo Choy, Chloe Ting, Gesyada Siregar, Angga Wijaya, and Antonio Cataldo.
Situated Knowledges—Art and Curating on the Move was a three-day hybrid conference and workshop programme held from 25 to 27 June 2021. Organised as part of Shared Campus and the travelling international workshop series Curating on the Move, the event connected an on-site programme at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong with online participation through the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich. It brought together artists, curators, educators, researchers, and students for public talks, discussions, and fifteen participatory workshops.
Taking Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledges” as its theoretical point of departure, the programme challenged claims to neutral, universal, or disembodied knowledge. Instead, it considered knowledge as partial, embodied, and shaped by the social position, material conditions, and cultural context of those who produce it. The conference explored what this understanding might mean for artistic research, curatorial practice, archives, institutional histories, collective action, and relationships with more-than-human worlds.
The first day opened with Once Upon a Place, a panel discussion with Lucy Steeds and John Tain, followed by the round table Situating the São Paulo Biennial 2020–21 with Michael Asbury and Jacopo Crivelli Visconti. Five parallel workshops examined different forms of situated practice: Situated Knowledges, Situated Works by Bo Choy and Chloe Ting; Curatorial Pitch Karaoke by Gesyada Siregar and Angga Wijaya; Curing the Archive Fever: Filling the Gaps through Situatedness by Antonio Cataldo; Attunement with More-than-Human Worlds by Karmen Franinovic and Roman Kirschner; and FoMO FREE RADIO by Nadim Abbas, Rose Li, Edward Sanderson, and Lang Tu.
The second day began with a participatory talk by Jeanne van Heeswijk. Its workshops comprised the round table Transposition by Ron Yakir, Li Xiaoqiao, and Rose Li; Whisper Game: Practising Attention through Caring and Pacing by Basia Sliwinska and Caroline Stevenson; Integrated and Immersive Approaches in Curatorial Practices: Highlighting Hong Kong Art History (1980s–1990s) in the Realm of the Contemporary Era by Janet Fong, Choi Yan Chi, May Fung, and Lo Yin Shan; Scores—From Situated Knowledges to Shared Action by Dorothee Richter and Ronald Kolb; and Transforming Situated Experience into Situated Knowledges by Katalin Erdődi.
The final day featured the public talks Situating the Gap by Angela Dimitrakaki and Against Political Naturalism by Yuk Hui. The concluding workshop programme consisted of Cloth Knowledge: Sculpting with a Missing Corner by Debe Sham and Georgia Kennedy; Situated Knowledges and Multidirectional Memory by Noit Banai and Dani Gal; Emancipating Alexa by Maayan Sheleff and Ruth Patir; Digital Choreography by Be van Vark; and Six Degrees of Separation: Curatorial Practice/Objects of Desire by Alison Green and Lee Weinberg.