Curatorial Matters: on Research Methodologies

Curatorial Matters: on research methodologies brings together curators and to explore the curatorial not only as a mode of presentation but as a site of inquiry and experimentation. The symposium opens space to think and work collectively across ecological, socio-political, and infrastructural terrains, asking what forms of knowledge, solidarities, and futures may emerge when curating is understood as research—situated, relational, and speculative. Contributions engage methodologies that are embodied, affective, and collaborative, inviting participants to think through critical curatorial imaginaries.

You can access the full list of abstracts and biographies HERE

Organisers: Patrizia Costantin (Lecturer in Curating and MA Art and Media Programme Director, Aalto University) and Marianna Tsionki (Associate Professor & University Curator, Leeds Arts University). This event is part of PUBLICS Parahosting programme and is supported by the Department of Art and Media, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University.

21 November - Programme

9.30-10:00 Coffee* and registration

10:00-10:15 Welcome words and introduction of the day

10:15-11:00 Keynote: Chiara Cartuccia, The Space We Make: Curating Counter Geographies of the Mediterranean

11:05-12:30 Panel: Water, Extractivism, and Environmental Infrastructures

Sara Alberani - Undercurrents. Poetics and Politics of the Flood

Yosuke Nakamoto - Curating Estrangement: Salt, Memory, and the Afterlives of Infrastructure

Cristina Ramos González - Tending the Tides: Oceanic Curating as a Practice of Hope

Yvonne Billimore - Field_Notes: Living methodologies

Lunch break*

13:45-14:30 Keynote: Övül Durmuşoğlu - Against Monocultural Curating: Are Practical Realignments of Curatorial Possible?

14:35-16:00 Panel – Translocal and Decolonial Curatorial Practices

Micol Curatolo - Curating Artistic Research as Translocal Laboratory

Jully Acuña Suarez and Marcelo M. Miranda - Botamán Juabnán as Curatorial Ethics: Cultural Continuity, Care, and Epistemic Justice

Danai Giannoglou - Revisiting the Margins: Independent Spaces as Sites of Curatorial Resistance and Knowledge Production

Abdullah Qureshi - Cruising Methodologies: Coalition-Building and Queer Curatorial Research in The Darkroom

Coffee break

16:20-17:45 Panel – Systems, Resistance, and Alternative Archives

Ali T. As’ad - Administrative Antimatter: Curating Palestine and (Re)producing Infrastructures of Possibility

Marina Christodoulidou - Rehearsals towards Place-making

KUĆĆA - The Parasite, the Stranger, and the Trickster: Curatorial Experiments with KUĆĆA

Barbara Mahlknecht - Constellations of Care: Reviving 1970s Feminist Archives

17:50 -18:00 Closing words

Please note: PUBLICS maximum capacity is 80 people.

If you registered but are eventually unable to attend, please delete your registration or contact us at curatorialmatters2025@gmail.com

*Coffee/Tea will be available for all. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide lunch for audience members.