FLYING IN THE FACE OF AUTHORITY

The most persuasive curators at the annual Experimenter Hub in Kolkata believe in dismantling structures of power and prejudice, finds Chintan Girish Modi.

- Chintan Girish Modi

The intellectual labour of curators influences how art is historicized, circulated and consumed. Curators are often called on to leave the safe confines of their academic training and immerse themselves in research-intensive processes that push them into new directions. Curatorial practices go beyond drawing from art history. They include gathering ethnographic data, sifting through archival records, cultivating relationships with communities and even participating in social movements.

The curatorial note shows us how they are constantly redefining the scope of their interventions in political and pedagogical terms. An interest in these discursive choices led me to the Experimenter Curators’ Hub 2019, hosted by Priyanka and Prateek Raja in Kolkata from the 28th to the 30th of November. It was the tenth anniversary of this annual gathering that invites curators to talk about their experiments, place their work in the context of larger trends in the contemporary art world and learn from each other. The audience was a mix of people who could be broadly characterized as cultural workers since not all of them could be identified as curators.

The speakers were Naomi Beckwith from USA, Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati from Nepal, Nora Razian from UAE, Anita Dube from India, Devika Singh from the UK, Paz Guevara from Germany, Zoe Butt from Vietnam, Tarun Nagesh from Australia, Lydia Yee from the UK and Shaina Anand from India. The Hub was moderated by Natasha Ginwala from India, the Co-Artistic Director of Gwangju Biennale 2020.