Multi-faceted Curator – The facet of Multi-culturalism
By June Yap

The role of the curator has expanded from simply being located in the arrangement of objects into a complex practice where multi-tasking is given full breadth of meaning. As a curator, the boundaries of one’s work is perhaps even arguably the attempt to defy its own definition, and view art practice from a different vantage, even its own.

The week-long workshop bringing together 18 curators from Asian and European countries is meant as a platform for an exchange of curatorial practices and to facilitate information distribution, recognising the need for new strategies of ‘inter-regional information and the development of cross-cultural networks’. With the objectives of fostering exchange of curatorial practices, promoting networking between Asia and Europe and with the potential of new projects arising from new curatorial strategies and ideas, the workshop is the first organised by the two institutions, the Goethe-Institut Jakarta and the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), and in that should receive due credit for initiating such a project. The curating practice, while being formalised in curatorial programmes that have become more popular and perhaps even staple of late, however does not workshop its exhibition projects on a regular basis. Collaborative curating, as a broad (and unembellished) term, is not defined generally through a process of measured discussion, rather through a less linear exploration of interests that arise, through at times the most casual of conversations.

While a programme organised by a trans-national cultural organization may be viewed as an expected extension of its aim to create exchanges, it became clear during the course of the workshop that there were benefits that could be further reaped if the framework would be able to include a reflection upon the processes it introduces. Furthermore, as a project involving young curators from Asia and Europe, discussions would be predicated on the different realities and reflexive practices operating in the areas they are involved within. Acknowledging that curators function within a cultural, political, economic and social environment towards which they contribute, and recognizing that curatorial roles and interests are often varied, the value of the workshop for the organisers is in creating spaces where access to these differences can be made available and visible.

The workshop had three main outcomes it hoped to achieve, the discussion of a possible common (exhibition) project that could be developed, the development of an exchange platform for curatorial strategy or experiences (publication) and the organiser’s own report publication of the proceedings. The first two would prove quickly problematic in a roomful of curators. As a multi-lateral project, there were immediate concerns that while a collaborative-slash-exchange project had good intentions, it does not simple translate to each individual curator’s circumstances and experiences, or satisfy beyond its abstract intention. Yet that said, the programme specifically brought together curators with a common interest, one that is acknowledged explicitly by each curator, of a trans-cultural practice of curating, either having worked internationally or relocated their practice from their place of origin. These are the curators who have found it critical in their work to adapt and straddle multiple contexts. Given the profile of the curators participating, the priority of exchange would not require much debate. However the variety of forms of exchange differed substantially. It was also a concern (or perhaps should be one) that cultural diplomacy while beginning through an open-ended, process-oriented position, perhaps should retain this characteristic rather than giving in too easily to formulaic solutions. Having demonstrated the importance for exchange, navigating across multiple and diverse issues, the question arose if there was even a need to demand a unilateral common ground upon which to build an exchange. The cross-cultural curator is faced not only with problems of defining what is considered intelligible for presentation, but also with the differences in the identity and role of the curator within their own contexts. Of note was the concern that there may be a need to develop ways of looking at Asia as defined by Asia, for a European audience.

In the two discussion groups I attended, deliberating issues of identity and new ways of representation, what visibly emerged was how critically the concern of multiplicity would need not only to be grappled with, but also problematised. The difference between identity as set role or defined role, and identification implying process and perhaps even the possibility of not arriving at a single identity, from the discussions, is in fact a real mode and strategy that is required of the contemporary curator. The primacy of context then required that the issue of networking rise beyond a functional condition to that of being precisely the activity and content of one’s strategy. Yet the act of networking would not necessitate collaboration, at least not in its functional context.

Through the discussions and presentations, there were dialogues and debate on the nature of curating, the role of curators, their relationships to artists, the communities they serve, how they can/should serve them, the needs of the community, the needs of the artists, the political navigating, whom does the curator mediate between, for whom does the curator or curating represent, the function of curating for aesthetic praxis, social situations, political situations, even posterity and real efficacy, the role of theory, for whom multiculturalism functions – all of which further served to circumscribe the difference between the curators brought together under the aegis of the workshop. That is not to deny the fact that there were interesting projects raised, new artists introduced to participants and strategies and experiences presented, all of which provided welcome food for thought.

As the week approached its end, the discussion turned once again to the outcome of the workshop. A few projects were proposed, amongst which was a ‘virtual’ project that would provide a platform for cross-cultural discussion, culminating with the possibility of a biennale of sorts. The project would be playful yet contain the possibility of its realization, allowing for the issues raised through the week to be further explored and articulated. As this is being written, it seems the discussion is continuing even as the participants have returned to their own contexts.

Another possible project that has emerged that is a little more particular to the host country, and perhaps resonates for the other Asian participants, is the proposal to develop a platform for continuing dialogue and development of critical discourses that can then be delivered to the European counterparts and participants as further resource and also discussion, creating an avenue where practices and situations in Asia can be framed within its own context.

An answer to the question of whether collaborative or exchange strategies did emerge from the workshop, would be yes. Through the discussions both within the programme and in the few precious moments of leisure when flip-charts were not present, networking and real possibilities of collaboration were broached, discussed and in lighter moments convivially laughed over. The workshop in this sense has succeeded as a space where each curator’s role can be expanded. It is however a possibility that is coloured by, and that requires a sensitivity to, the other concerns and questions raised through the discussions, issues both local and global, issues of identity and representation; and as one of the observers Ute Meta Bauer pointed out in her comment ‘very often one tries to pair peripheries’, the importance of being critical and reflexive while performing this role.

Post-workshop, the challenges anticipated and perhaps even developed in the course of the week remain. Of some interest perhaps to both participants, observers and perhaps organisers, would be keeping the notion of exchange and collaboration from becoming a spectacle of itself, and thus create a real network and dialogue of sustainable proportions. Having deliberately courted difference, it would seem a pity to so quickly bury it, and it would be worth something to remind ourselves periodically, that in working within such platforms, collaborations and exchanges, that we are not curating multi-culturalism, rather we are curating art.

June Yap
Independent curator, based in Singapore.

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