Biographies and Research Interests for C/K Participants and Auditors
C/K participant biographies and research interests below:
PARTICIPANTS:
Cihat Arinc
Born Kayseri, Turkey, 1981. Art director and project specialist at Kultur Co., Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (2006-). Instructor of philosophical aesthetics and board member at the Center for Fine Arts and Art Studies, Foundation for Sciences and Arts, Istanbul (2006-). BA Media and Film Studies, Istanbul University (2003); MA Philosophy, Bogazici University (2008), thesis title “Against Historicism and Aestheticism: Walter Benjamin’s Critical Philosophy of Film” co-supervised by Zeynep Davran and Yildiz Silier. Published in journals including Cogito and Divan Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. Contributed to talks, panels, colloquia and international conferences including at University of Birmingham (UK), University of Kentucky (USA), Ege University (Turkey), Foundation for Sciences and Arts (Turkey).
Interests: Research project title: Digitized Heterotopia: A Phenomenology of Contemporary Museum Space; philosophical aesthetics, phenomenology of art, epistemology of the visual arts, critical theory, postdigital conception of space-time, museology and curatorial studies, psychoanalytic film theory, contemporary art practices, contemporary Islamic arts, Middle Eastern visual cultures.
Anshuman Das Gupta
Born 1967, Kolkata, India. Graduated in Art History from Kala Bhavan , Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and Post Graduation in Art History from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S University of Baroda in 1990 and 1992. He attended an intensive film appreciation course in the Film and Television Institute, Pune in 1993 and was a research fellow at the MSU, Baroda from 1992 to 1997. In 1997, he joined Santiniketan (Visva Bharati University), as a lecturer in art History. Anshuman has taught at various institutions in India. His recent curatorial ventures include the Ramkinkar Baij Centenary e hibition and the Khoj international artists’ workshop exhibition. As a writer and art historian/ critic he has contributed many essays to journals like Lalit Kala Contemporary (published by the premier art organization in India); in 1996 (no. 41); in 2000 (No. 47) and in 2006 (No. 51); The Marg volumes (one in 2001, one forthcoming); and Nandan, published by the Department of Art History, Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University (between 1997 and 2006).
Interests: The politics of process in the formation of subject/agent in specific locations. For me this doesn’t exclude the translocated or dislocated beings but rather my projects/conceptions are sensitive and interested in those otherings. My idea is to work towards a curatorial venture that may be called conceptual/interactive, or collaborative, with a view to exploring the shared episteme in the process of the subject formation.
Hyunjin Kim
Born in Hongseong in 1975, Hyunjin Kim lives and works in Seoul as a curator and writer. She studied art theory and critical studies, and has worked as an Assistant Curator at the Artsonje Center in Seoul, as a Guest Curator at the Vanabbe Museum in Eindhoven, and as a Curatorial Assistant at the 2005 Istanbul Biennial. Besides her own independent projects and exhibitions, she is currently working for IASmedia program of Insa Art Space as an Associate Curator. From her previous exhibitions, such as Reality Bites (Loop, Seoul, 2002), Where is My Friend's Home (Test Site, Rooseum, 2003), Steaming Away from the Places (Sangmyung Gallery, 2004), Plug-In #03: Undeclared Crowd (Vanabbe Museum, 2006), lasting practices have been inspired by her existential thinking on being and by ethical consideration in different modes of practices in contemporary art.
Interests: The politics of subject in the context of the individual being and its position as the other. I have been drawn to the notion of a community with impractical solidarity but sincere, imaginative responsibility among individual beings. What I assume with these conditions of community would be discussed with Jean-Luc Nancy's "inoperative community" and Maurice Blanchot's "unavowable community."
Doreen Mende
Born in East Germany in 1976. Diploma in Music from the University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. Studies in Electro-Acoustic Music at the Sibelius Akatemia in Helsinki. Education Programme of Documenta11 and 3rd Berlin Biennale. Assistant Curator of Shrinking Cities (KW Institute for Contemporary Art , Berlin 2004), Get Rid of Yourself (Halle 14, Leipzig 2003). Assistant to How Architecture Can Think Socially (symposium, Halle 14, 2002) and Shrinking Cities Music (Palast der Republik, Berlin 2004). Curator of What If ... #2 (JET, Berlin 2005), Ear Appeal (Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien 2006), Not Right But Wrong (JET, Berlin 2007), LOGE (performance/installation series at General Public, Berlin). Doreen Mende has been editing publications in connection with the projects above and texts published in von hundert, Texte zur Kunst, C Magazine. Since 2006, assistant professor in Exhibition Design and Curatorial Practice programme at the University of Media Art and Design in Karlsruhe (HfG). Editor-in-Chief of the publication series DISPLAYER, published by HfG. Co-founder of the collective/project space General Public. www.artnews.info/doreenmende
Interests: An exhibition is shaped by a multitude of contexts. Thinking about an exhibition means thinking about its contexts. What is seen when we enter an exhibition? Or to put it another way; what is not seen, and why? How is knowledge shaped and visibility activated? What does a presentation present and represent in an exhibition? How, Where and Why is a piece of art displayed?
Inês Moreira
Born Porto, Portugal, 1977. Independent researcher and free lance architect, curator and producer, she has been developing different projects and exhibitions mostly in Iberian Peninsula. She was coordinator of the Laboratory of Experimental Art (Institute of Art/Ministery of Culture) from 2003-2005 and founding member of Plano 21, an organization devoted to culture, art and architecture (2005-). Graduated in Architecture (UP-Porto, 2001) and holds an MPhil degree in Architecture and Urban Culture (UPC – Barcelona, 2003). At the present moment she has a scholarship from FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) to participate on the PhD Program in Curatorial/Knowledge at Goldsmiths College.
Interests: Research project title: Building sites: spatial practices and the curatorial; Exhibiting Spatial Experiments; breeding roles of architect-curators; Contemporary Architecture and Art, Curatorial practices, Critical and Experimental practices.
Sarah Pierce
Over the past four-and-a-half years in Dublin, Sarah Pierce has developed The Metropolitan Complex—a project that taps into locality and shared neuroses of 'place'. She uses a variety of established discourses such as talks, papers, exhibitions, and archives: often opening up these structures to the personal and the incidental. Recent projects include The Meaning of Greatness at Project, Dublin 2006 and the 2nd Moscow Biennale 2007; Enthusiasm! co-curated with Grant Watson on Resonance 104.4fm London, for Frieze Special Commissions, 2006; Monk’s Garden, Irish Pavilion, 51st Venice Biennale 2005. Published projects can be found in Curating Subjects, Open Editions, 2007; /seconds, Issues 4 www.slashseconds.org; Make Everything New – a project on communism, Book Works 2006; Looking Encountering Staging, Piet Zwart, 2005, Put About – a critical anthology on independent writing, Book Works, 2005; Meanwhile Someplace Else…, Sala Rekalde, 2005; Tracer 1 and 2, Witte de With, 2004; and Printed Project Issues 1 and 6. She regularly publishes The Metropolitan Complex Papers, a series of transcribed conversations distributed for free, and collaborates with Sven Anderson on www.themetropolitancomplex.com.
Interests: Locality and communality; Forms of Curating and Documentation; Feminist Legacies; Self-organizing and informal structures; Criticality and Artistic Production; Synchronicity and Repetition in Art and Non-art Practices; Collective Outputs; Exhibitory Systems and Representation; Conversational and Discursive Art Practices; Curating and Education; Underground and self-publishing; Archiving as Critical Practice; Contemporary Art and Critical Discourse.
Joshua Simon
Born in Tel-Aviv, 1979. Curator and filmmaker. Co-founder and co-editor of Maayan – Journal of Art and Poetry and Maarvon – New Film Magazine. Curator of the following exhibitions: 96 Elections (Solo exhibition of Roy Chicky Arad), Tal Esther Gallery, Tel Aviv (2000); I slept with Ari Libsker, The Free Academy Pavilion of Art, Tel Aviv (2001); Imagine: 350 artists for co-existence (with Said Abu Shakra, Roee Rosen and Aim Deuelle Luski), Rosenfeld gallery, Tel Aviv and Umm-El-Fahim gallery (2002); Amos Gitai: Retrospective, Israeli Cinematheque (2003); Sharon, Kalisher school, Tel Aviv (2004); It’s me: Auto/biography in Contemporary Israeli Art (with Dalia Levin), Herzliya Museum for Contemporary Art (2005); Blanks: 10 years to Rabin's assasination (with Sergio Edelsztein), The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2005); Doron: human resources outsourcing and contemporary art collecting, Minshar gallery, Tel Aviv (2006). Curator of the 1st Herzliya Biennial for Contemporary Art (Sep. 2007).
Interests: Marxist analysis, class warfare and social struggles, the public sphere, postcolonial theories, citizenship history and Apartheid studies, community and society, contemporary art and contemporary art institutions.
Aneta Szylak
Currently a co-founder and director of Wyspa Institute of Art - the intellectual environment for contemporary visual culture - in the former Gdansk Shipyard premises in Poland. Ms. Szylak is a Vice-President of the Wyspa Progress Foundation, a non-profit art organization established in 1994. In years 1998 Ms. Szylak founded the Center for Contemporary Art Laznia (Bathhouse) and was its Director until spring 2001. Aneta Szylak curated numerous exhibitions characterized by strong response toward cultural, political, social, architectural and institutional context, including “You won’t feel a thing: On Panic, Obsession, Rituality and Anesthesia” [2006, Kunsthaus Dresden], “Legality of the space- Ewa Partum” [2006, Wyspa], “Dockwatchers” [2005, Wyspa], “Palimpsest Museum” [2004, I Lodz Biennale, Lodz, Poznanski Palace], “Health & Safety” [2004, Wyspa], “Architectures of Gender” [2003, SculptureCenter, New York], “All You need is Love” [2000, Center for Contemporary Art Laznia]. She has written over a hundred texts about contemporary art, published in catalogues, books and art magazines in Poland and abroad. She was a board member of the "Mare Articum" Magazine in Poland [1996-2004] and Polish Contributing Editor of the Central European Art Magazine "Praesens" in Budapest [2002-2005]. Recently she became a board member of “A Prior Magazine” based in Brussels. She co-edited a book entitled "The Site of Idea. The "Idea of Site" [1995] covering the first 10 years of the Gdansk alternative art scene history.
Interests: Art activism, socially and politically engaged art, public space, memory and history matters, art, literary and linguistic theories, contextual practices, conceptualization of art institutions.
AUDITORS:
Roberto Cavallini
Independent curator and writer. He received his MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Roberto Cavallini is currently Visiting Tutor and PhD student in the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also founder and member of BIS, independent research media collective based in London, UK.
Interests: The notion of critical inheritance in the artistic and cultural field and its relation to the question of the 'political' in the work of Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida. Contemporary Visual Cultures and politics of memory, the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Bridget Crone
Director of Media Art Bath, a publicly funded organisation that commissions new work, encouraging performative and collaborative practices using sound, moving image and performance. Before coming to Media Art Bath, Bridget worked at The Showroom, London where from 2003 she was the gallery coordinator. Before arriving in London from Australia, Bridget worked for the Melbourne International Biennial, RMIT University Gallery and curated freelance projects for museums and galleries such as the Ian Potter Museum of Art and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces. Bridget has taught on the BA in the department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, The University of London teaching, courses on the history and politics of museums, collections and contemporary curating. She has also been a visiting tutor at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London.
Interests: The corporeality of the aesthetic experience, new media, and contemporary curatorial practices.
Jenny Doussan
BA cum laude Studio Art, Loyola University New Orleans (1999); MA History of the Decorative Arts & Design, Parsons School of Design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (2002), thesis topic Courtiers and courtesanes: Fashion and carte-de-visite photography during the Second Empire supervised by Harold Koda; Jenny has studied and worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology, the Whitney Museum of American Art and Sotheby's. From 2003-2006, Jenny worked as Assistant Vice President of the Neuberger Berman Art Collection in New York City. Her current research is on the problem of intent in the work of Giorgio Agamben.
Interests: Research project title: An Erotics of the Curatorial; Platonic Eros as a mechanics of spectatorship; the work of Giorgio Agamben, Plato and Walter Benjamin
Galit Eilat
Curator, Founding Director of DAL – The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon. She is co-editor in chief of Maarav – an online art and culture magazine as well as a teacher in Tel Aviv University at the Department of Film and Television. She is currently an advisor for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem as well as member of the artistic director board of "Amanut Haaretz" annual festival for young Israeli art.
Janna Graham
An organizer, writer, researcher, educator, curator, negotiator, and chronic collaborator. During her eight years at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto she developed exhibitions and programming in collaboration with artists, youth and community organizers. Recent projects include: Ultra-red's SILENT|LISTEN at Art Gallery of Ontario, Artcirq II, a residency and exhibition with an Inuit performance//video circus collective at Project Art Centre in Dublin, The Ambulator: or what happens when we take questions for a walk, in the exhibition, Academy: Learning from the Museum, Vanabbemuseum, Eindhoven. Other collaborators include: Mercer Union Contemporary Art Centre and FUSE Magazine (Toronto), 16beavergroup (New York), Ultra-red (LA/Toronto/London), debajehmujig theatre (Wikwemikong) and Artcirq (Igloolik). Her musings on art, culture and how to inhabit cultural institutions otherwise have been published in Canada and the UK. She is currently a founding member of the Committee for Radical Diplomacy and a Phd Candidate/tutor at Goldsmiths College in London.
Interests: Experimenting with modes of public participation, knowledge formation and instituent mischief, her current investigations explore the acoustics of administration, participatory organizing methods and radical relationship-making.
Paolo Plotegher
Has read, listened, written and talked a bit about art around Italy, in Madrid and London. He has curated a couple of shows in Bolzano, London and Tokyo.
Interests: Current research project is based on a few housewives talking from one balcony to another, and trying to engage with the question: where and what is political activism?
Jack Persekian
Born in Jerusalem, living in Jerusalem and Sharjah. Curator and producer, founder and director of Anadiel gallery, the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem and XEIN Productions. Artistic director of the Sharjah Biennial’s 8th and 9th edition and head curator of its 7th edition, UAE. Curated several exhibitions locally and internationally, among them: reconsidering Palestinian art in Cuenca, Spain 2006, disorientation – contemporary Arab artists from the Middle East, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2003), in weiter ferne, so nah, neue palastinensische kunst, ifa galleries in Bonn, Stuttgart and Berlin (2002), in addition to the official Palestinian Representation to the XXIV Biennale de Sao Paulo. Directed and produced several events locally and internationally, most recent: the Palestinian Cultural Evening at the World Economic Forum in the Dead Sea, Jordan (2004), the Geneva initiative, public commitment event in Geneva (2003), the Millennium Celebrations in Bethlehem, Bethlehem 2000 project (2000). Produced a series of short films and videos: ‘A Ball and a Coloring Box’, ‘my son’, and ‘the last 5 short films of the millennium’ with a group of Palestinian filmmakers.
Monika Szewczyk
Born 1975, independent writer and curator based in Brussels, Belgium and Vancouver, Canada. She holds degrees in International Relations (BA) and Art History (MA) from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. For the past three years, she was assistant curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery and an instructor at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, where she continues to teach in the Critical + Cultural Studies Department. Apart from several exhibition projects, numerous catalogue contributions, as well as reviews and critical essays for publications such as A Prior (Ghent), Art Papers (Atlanta), C Magazine (Toronto) and Fillip (Vancouver).
Interests: I wish to contribute to the evolving discourse about exhibition making or ‘the curatorial’ with an expansive consideration of the salon as an exhibition model. This model can be situated within contemporary debates about the social possibilities of exhibition making and within historical examples of the social function of salons.
Grant Watson
Curator at Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA) from 2006 – onwards. Organised Keyword/Culture lecture series including Martha Rosler, Paul Gilroy, Steve McQueen, Adrian Rifkin, Rosi Braidotti, Maria Hjlavajova; Coordinated Martha Rosler Library and Apolonija Sustersic workshop – for Academy. Curator of Visual Arts Project, Dublin from 2001 – 2006 - exhibitions included: Igloolik Isuma Productions, General Idea, Bojan Sarcevic, Sarah Pierce, Martha Rosler, Gerard Byrne, Communism, Goshka Macuga, NS Harsha, Matti Braun, City Park/Bangalore and Enthusiasm a radio project for Frieze Art Fair. Books/Talks/Writing/Exhibitions/Research - Edited ‘Make Everything New: A Project on Communism’ published by Bookworks, Drawing Space; Contemporary Indian Drawing (exhibition inIVA), Room for Improvement, Crafts Museum New Delhi (residency/exhibition). Published writing including with Phaidon, DuMont Publishers, De Appel/Open Editions, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Showroom Gallery, Chemould Gallery and Neue Review. Tallks/panels including at Tate, Serpentine, Casco Projects, Canal/Peer Arts, ACAD conference (Baeza) Visva Barati University (W.Bengal), V&A, Showroom and Irish Museum of Modern Art. Research for The Arts Council of England, the Arts Council of Ireland and Documenta 12.
Interests: A continued investigation into the communistic as it is materialised in contemporary and historical art practice as well as in lived experience. An analysis of the cartography of power as well as the micro political - of how individuals and groups position themselves in relation to the world as a key theme within the curatorial. Methodology: to make this analysis through semi fictional texts that perform the notion of a poetic community and resistance at the level of the micro political.