Curator exchange
With ruangrupa, for the first time an artists' collective has been tasked with the artistic direction of the documenta 15. The ten-member collective was founded in Jakarta in 2000 and operates an art space there, realizing exhibitions, festivals, publications and radio formats.
Ruangrupa pursues a participatory curatorial approach for documenta 15, focusing on partnership models and interdisciplinary approaches. This approach is in line with current trends that reframe the role of curators as classic "gatekeepers" and situate the work and impact of curating more in community-building - inclusion rather than exclusion.
International Networking
The focus of the curator's exchanges will be on partnership models of curating, explicitly anti-racist ways of working, and innovative approaches to social inclusion and community building.The following curators from Canada have been invited to Kassel:
assinajac
| © assinajac
Asinnajaq is an urban Inuk from Inukjuak, Nunavik and lives in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). Asinnajaq’s art practice spans many mediums from film to performance video, to curation and much in between. She co-created Tilliraniit, a three day festival celebrating Inuit art and artists. Asinnajaq wrote and directed Three Thousand (2017) a short sci-fi documentary. She co-curated Isuma’s presence in the ‘Canadian’ pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale. She was long listed for the 2020 Sobey Art Award. She co-curated the inaugural exhibition INUA at the Qaumajuq.
Diane Gistal
Diane Gistal
| © Orphée Okito
is an independent curator and founder and Executive Director of Nigra Iuventa, a Montreal-based non-profit organization that celebrates Black and Afro-descendant diverse heritage and history through visual and media arts. By combining creativity and erudition, the organization aims to elevate and amplify the voices of Black artists both locally and internationally. Nigraiuventa.com
Subalternes (CDEx, 2019), Je sais pourquoi l'oiseau chante en cage (Fonderie Darling, Centre culturel Georges-Vanier und CDEx, 2020), Respiration (Galerie de l'UQAM, 2020) und S'inscrire dans le présent ( Never Apart, 2021) are among her most recent curatorial projects.
Layne Hilton
| © Andreea Muscurel
Layne Hinton is a curator, artist, cultural strategist and creative producer based in Toronto, Canada. She is the Co-Director and Co-Curator of Art Spin, a not-for-profit arts organization operating since 2009 with a focus on ephemeral strategies for public art programming. Hinton focuses on curating through a site-responsive approach, working across different neighbourhoods to animate alternative spaces that are often overlooked. Throughout her 12 years with Art Spin, her socially based curatorial practice aims to recontextualize unique spaces as a platform for approachable and shared experiences. Her interest lies in collaborative commissions that involve working closely with artists to develop projects that span all disciplines, creating new connecting points between diverse audiences. laynehinton.com
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The curators of the North America (NAM) and East and Southeast Asia (SAS) regions with Richard Bell -
Photo of the group of curators from the North America (NAM) and East Asia and Southeast Asia (SAS) during a conference held by Chiara Ianeselli, curatorial coordinator. -
Among other curators from other regions, Elena Gross (San Francisco), Layne Hinton (Toronto), Anisa Olufemi (Washington) and Ellie Lee (Los Angeles) with Iswanto Hartono and Mirwan Andan from the ruangrupa collective -
Curators Diane Gistal (Montreal) and Theo Tyson (Boston) at the welcome lunch -
Asinnajaq (Montreal) at a workshop -
Asinnajaq in a room dedicated to the Instituto de artivismo Hannah Arendt -
In the spirit of the community
In the run-up to the fair, there was a discussion about possible anti-Semitic tendencies among the curators of documenta 15, especially from the ranks of ruangrupa and some groups associated with them. Jewish artists from Israel were not invited, and on the first day of the fair a work by the group Taring Padi with clearly anti-Semitic content was exhibited, and subsequently removed after strong reactions of the public. At this point, we would like to explicitly distance ourselves from content of this kind and anti-Semitism in any form.
