Curatorial Statement
One central concern in my curatorial work consists, on the one hand, of developing main focuses in connection to a location or a situation based on particular artworks, and on the other, putting the available – architectural or social – space into a specific context for discussion. If I had to condense my work to an interest in one medium, I would summarize it, in the broadest sense, as an interest in space in its various functions and manifestations, and/or explain it as an attempt to allow a narrative to be created through a connection of particular situations, which is able to transport the material that actually exists to another level.
The exhibition program of an institution is often based on the local history within which it is situated, and on its context, to which particular attention is paid. When the local context itself becomes the content, one could speak of a specific form of curatorial practice. Thus this approach to exhibition design can mean a new way of engaging with the public, while at the same time it emphasises the production of the public sphere.
A further focus of my activities is related to existing power relations, the involvement in the construction of meaning, which is formed in most cases, whether to understand processes – or to avoid and/or fill the empty space.
Methods of appropriation and the restructuring of the surrounding world are artistic practices that generate shifts in perception and transform or question conventional standardisations. The re-grouping, re-situating, re-contextualising of different balancing forces are also components of my curatorial practice.
Nikola Dietrich (2006)
