Longitudes

Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

Cover Story, January 2024: Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive

   January 2024 cover story on www.lttds.org


The January 2024 monthly Cover Story “Curating Lab 2014 – Curatorial Intensive” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

“As we start 2024, for one reason or another we find ourselves pausing to reminisce about Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive, which took place in June 2014, and which was organised by NUS Museum, Singapore, with support from the National Arts Council of Singapore. ” → Continue reading (after January 2024  this story will be archived here).

Cover Stories are published monthly on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present, or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects, or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.


→ RELATED CONTENTS

  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories 
  • Cover Story, December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View
  •  Sat, 2 Dec 2023 
  • Cover Story, November 2023: Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, 2 Nov 2023
  • Cover Story, October 2023: A tree felled, a tree cut in 7, 2 October 2023
  • Cover Story, September 2023: The Pilgrim in Ireland, 6 September 2023
  • Cover Story, July–August 2023: Honeymoon in Valencia, 1 July 2023
  • Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures, 1 Jun 2023
  • Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona, 1 May 2023
  • Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023), 1 Apr 2023
  • Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions, 1 March 2023
  • Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories, 2 Feb 2023
  • Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ ‘Gerundi Circular’, 2 Jan 2023
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Cover Story—February 2021: ‘Straits Time: narrative smuggling in Singapore’

Latitudes' homepage 
www.lttds.org

The February 2021 monthly Cover Story ‘Straits Time: narrative smuggling in Singapore’ is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

“In the latest episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ from Singapore, curator Kathleen Ditzig and artists Fyerool Darma & Nurul Huda Rashid take us on a journey through regional folklore, historical amnesia, and the façade of mass-surveillance in this city-state.”

→ After February 2021 this story will be archived here.

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.


→ RELATED CONTENTS

  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
  • Cover Story–January 2021: ‘Things Things Say’: VIP's Union’, 1 Jan 2021
  • Cover Story—December 2020: ‘Things Things Say’: This Action Lies’, 1 Dec 2020
  • Cover Story—November 2020: ‘Things Things Say’: Stuart Whipps’, 1 Nov 2020
  • Cover Story—October 2020: Incidents (of Travel) Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, 2 Oct 2020
  • Cover Story—September 2020: States of emergency—Lola Lasurt’s ‘Children’s Game’, 1 Sept 2020
  • Cover Story—August 2020: ‘Màquina possible’: going viral at Can Balaguer, 1 Aug 2020
  • Cover Story—July 2020: Nino Kvrivishvili’s silk roads: Incidents (of Travel), Tbilisi, 1 Jul 2020
  • Cover Story—June 2020: Mataró Chauffeur Service, since 2010, 1 June 2020
  • Cover Story—May 2020: Panama, back through the lens, 4 May 2020
  • Cover Story—March-April 2020: The Bolós Cabinet, 3 March 2020
  • Cover Story—February 2020: Carioca Incidents, 3 February 2020
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Episode #14 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Kathleen Ditzig with Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid from Singapore


A new episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ from Singapore, is now live! This is the latest dispatch of the series produced by KADIST and edited by Latitudes since 2016, exploring the chartered itinerary as a format of an artistic encounter between curator/s and artist/s. 

In the 14th dispatch, Singapore-based curator Kathleen Ditzig joins artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid nearby ‘Safe Entry‘ (2020), a mural presented at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) by the artist Heman Chong that repeats a single, enlarged QR code, “the new digital skin of the city”, as Nurul points out. From there, they head towards the boardwalk connecting Harbourfront with Sentosa Island, the pleasure island home to many tourist attractions. Fyerool and Nurul weave in stories of past pirates and deities against the backdrop of the glass-green waters that stage the “blue aesthetics against the imported sands [from Indonesia] of reclaimed lands.”

Incidents (of Travel) site presents one continuous immersive read interwoven with images and short videos in a mobile-friendly format. 
📲 TAP, SCROLL and SWIPE! 
📖 READ 👀 WATCH👂🏻LISTEN

Desktop view of → http://incidents.kadist.org

Incidents (of Travel) was conceived in 2012 when Latitudes commissioned 5 day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City in the framework of a short residency at Casa del Lago. The project had sequels in 2013 in Hong Kong with online dispatches published live via social media, including soundscapes (archived on Soundcloud), and in 2015 in San Francisco with daily posts as part of Kadist's Instagram take over “Artist Not In The Studio Curator Not At The Office”.

A year later, KADIST and Latitudes partnered in a new ‘distributed’ phase of Incidents (of Travel) extending the invitation to curators and artists working around the world and publishing their dispatches as part of KADIST's Online Projects.

Since 2016, fourteen conversations have taken place in Singapore (Singapore), Cabo Rojo (Puerto Rico), Tbilisi (Georgia), Panama City (Panama), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Reykjavík (Iceland), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Hobart (Tasmania), Yerevan (Armenia), Terengganu (Malaysia), Lisbon (Portugal), Suzhou (China), Jinja (Uganda) and Chicago (US). 



The first dispatch launched in April 2016 with an itinerary by curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – a day photographed by Nabiha Khan


The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.


The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.


The fourth dispatch came from Lisbon, where Galician curator Pedro de Llano visited key locations that marked the life and work of Luisa Cunha.


The fifth episode took place in April 2016, when curator Simon Soon and artist chi too visited the Malaysian North Eastern state of Terengganu, where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by “men and women who work(ed) multiple jobs as fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders, farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that matters.”


The sixth episode narrates a walking itinerary conducted by curator Marianna Hovhannisyan with Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, documenting the transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre.


The seventh episode comes from Hobart, capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.


In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.


In the ninth dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's “current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time.”



The tenth dispatch begins with an itinerary proposed by Barcelona-born, Rio de Janeiro-based artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and is followed by images and videos recording a day roaming Rio's natural and artistic landscapes with Bogotá-born, Mexico City-based curator Catalina Lozano, who narrates their day spent together. 


In the 11th episode, Swiss curator Sandino Scheidegger (Random Institute) visits Panama City in preparation for a solo exhibition by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker at Casa Santa Ana in 2021. Conlon and Harker collaboration since 2006 (while also pursuing their own individual art practices) has resulted in seventeen video works to date. The places Sandino, Donna and Jonathan visited together pointed to the origin of some of their video works, the ideas behind them, or simply served as stages in their pieces, turning into “an exercise in sneaking through fences to reach former recycling plants, imagining how things looked before the skyscrapers took over, and navigating the complex social fabric of Panama City — all while getting a taste of local food between every stop.” 


The 12th episode from Tbilisi, Georgia, set a different tone in the online series as it was programmed to take place in late May 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The itinerary set by Tbilisi-based artist Nino Kvrivishvili to lead Melbourne-based Associate Professor Tara McDowell became a WhatsApp video tour/conversation around Nino's artistic practice and the Georgian silk industry — a production that began in Tbilisi in the 5th century and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. 

 

Incidents (of Travel) from Cabo Rojo

In the 13th dispatch, and on week 23 of lockdown, Sofía Gallisá and Marina Reyes begin their day together driving to the Cabo Rojo Salt Flats where Sofía researched her 2018 film ‘Assimilate & Destroy I’. They later end up in Poblado de Boquerón, the queer capital of Puerto Rico's south where a large public beach and a usually busy street still show traces of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria.


→ RELATED CONTENT:

Episode #13 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marina Reyes and Sofía Gallisá from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, 27 Sep 2020

Episode #12 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Nino Kvrivishvili and Tara McDowell from Tbilisi, 25 Jun 2020 
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=7159211982397983135/episode-12-of-incidents-of-travel

Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City, 9 April 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=4425215029591365006/11-episode-of-incidents-of-travel

Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro, 
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel

The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689

The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691

Seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027

The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361

The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920

The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617

The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144

Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016 
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933

Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online, 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159


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Latitudes "Out of office", 2013–2014 season

This is the sixth consecutive year [see 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012–13] that we wave goodbye to the season as many of us say 'hello, holidays' by sharing what has become something of a Latitudes' tradition. Our yearly 'out of office' includes some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments from the last season. This casual yearly report has always been a welcome opportunity to revise the many photographs that have been buried on hard drives, to reflect on the past year, the fantastic people we met, enriching things we have seen, and to recharge for future challenges. 

This post heralds a short period of deceleration of our online activity (that is tending to our inbox, as well as this blog, Facebook and Twitter). We'll take a short break during August, but will be back in September with renewed energy. Until then, have a great summer break/Feliz verano dear readers!   

11–16 October 2013: 'Agora', Athens Biennial 4, Greece. Read the full report here
Beautiful Acropolis floor.
Afternoon light over the façade of the National Archaeological Museum.

An astonishing exhibition presenting severely-eroded antiquities recovered from the legendary shipwreck off the islet of Antikythera, south of the Peloponnese. (Hello, Matthew Monahan and Thomas Houseago!)

21–28 October 2013: As part of the Young Curators Invitational programme (YCI) coinciding with FIAC, we were invited to visit several institutions, gallery spaces and studios in Paris – Click here to read the full report of that week, or here for the archive of our tweets


Group photo of the Young Curators Invitational programme (YCI) 2013 participants nearby one of the massive and over-the-top fountains at Versailles. Some 1980s (or maybe 1880s?) dance moves going on for some reason.


We were looking forward to visiting this particular 18th-Century cabinet of curiosities, but only managed to take this one photo before we were told off. It's the Cabinet de Curiosités de Joseph Bonnier de La Mosson, at the Médiathèque of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle at the Jardin des Plantes. Quite a lot of fluff has been written about Cabinets de Curosités and exhibition-making, and some terrible art made in its name, but this slice of history is quite extraordinary, beautiful and shocking and 'very much of its time' to put it mildly. See some better photos here

16 November 2013: Seminar for "Curating the present. Theory and practice of the contemporary art exhibition", organised by Tania Pardo, Sergio Rubira and Alberto Sánchez Balmisawith  La Casa Encendida, Madrid.


About to begin our lecture... 

During our Madrid visit, we visited Roman Ondák's intervention at Palacio de Cristal (above) which got a short mention in our Roman Ondák lecture in Glasgow a few days after.

20 November 2013: At the kind invitation of the wonderful The Common Guild in Glasgow, on 21 November we gave a lecture about the work of Roman Ondák – read the text here. We also took the opportunity to do some studio visits – see full Report from Glasgow (posted on 4 December) – including Lucy Skaer's exhibition at Tramway; see Max's Frieze review.




27 November 2013: Mariana Cánepa Luna gave an afternoon seminar on a range of Latitudes' projects for the course 'On Mediation – Theory and Curatorial Practice in Global Art’ at the Universitat de Barcelona.



25 January 2014: Opening of "The Margins of the Factory" a solo show by Rotterdam-based Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, at ADN Platform in Sant Cugat (Barcelona). Photos of the show here, reviews and exhibition leaflet here and all the social media posts archived here.
Photo via Facebook of Miguel Ángel Sánchez, posted with the caption: "Curators backing up the artist! The awesome outcome of this team effort at ADN Platform. On view from Saturday 25th".


 Klaas installing the series of photos that form part of Producing time in between other things (2011).

Exhibition guide designed and produced by Latitudes includes texts on each piece and an A3 sized fold-out poster. Download in English and in Spanish

Nathaniel Mann's opening performance included his singing the Basque popular song “Oi Peio Peio” – a dialogue between a woman worker and her cruel boss, who insists that she carries on working throughout the night. Watch video of the performance here. Photo: Joan Morey

 Photo published by Amanda Bernal in her exhibition preview at Tot Sant Cugat.

19–22 February 2013: Since November 2013, Latitudes had been guest Tweeting from @ARCOmeetings, advancing content and profiling the +70 participants of the seven Professional Meetings that took place during ARCOmadrid art fair. During the fair, we live-Tweeted each session as well as the 'III Meeting of Museums of European and Iberoamerica'. Our reportage and commentary spanned over 1200 Tweets – they're archived here.


Welcoming words by Joao Fernandes, Deputy Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, before kicking off the 'III Meeting of Museums of European and Iberoamerica'.

The "Biennials at the Periphery" session was masterfully moderated by the SITE Santa Fe team.

18 March 2014: Max in conversation with Dutch artist Remco Torenbosch at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, in the context of his exhibition at NoguerasBlanchard.
Photo by @priscilaclementti.

12 May–7 June: Visiting Curator Programme of Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, Australia, in partnership with MADA: Monash School of Art Design and Architecture. Our month-long residency is documented in this Storify thread.


Central Melbourne.

On May 14, we gave a lecture and an afternoon seminar with PhD candidates in Curatorial Practice at MADA | Monash University in Melbourne, focusing on 2012–13 research project #OpenCurating, and in particular the published interviews with the web team from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; with Badlands Unlimited in New York; with research curator Steven ten Thije of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and with Dia Art Foundation Curator, Yasmil Raymond.


Photo: Courtesy MADA.

During our Melbourne residency we made more than thirty studio visits, and also met curators, graphic designers, writers, editors and University professors. We also paid visits to galleries (Neon Parc, Sarah Scout, Sutton Gallery, Utopian Slumps, Tolarno Gallery, Anna Schwartz Gallery...), bookstores (the jewel-box that is World Food Books), non-profits, curator-led projects and artist-run-spaces (West Space, Slopes) and of course museums such MUMA at Monash, the Ian Potter Museum, the National Gallery Victoria, or the fantastic Heide Museum, which hosted a solo show of Emily Floyd (pictured below).


 
On May 23rd we shadowed a site visit to the fascinating Living Museum of the West (photo below) in Maribyrnong, a social history museum and former industrial site which will be the focus a forthcoming project by West Space with artists Susan Jacobs and Geoff Robinson, among others. Below their analogue archive over interviews, with plenty of cassettes, binders and filing cabinets.

We had one day to explore the stunning Great Ocean Road. We saw a couple of wild koalas as well as local-speciality birdlife including Rufous Bristlebird and Hooded Dotterel, plus many surfers waiting for the perfect wave, before driving back to the city.

26–31 May 2014: Visiting Sydney and the 19th Biennale of Sydney.


 A great welcome to Sydney sunset by the Opera House.


Bianca Hester's 'fashioning discontinuities', 2013–14, at Cockotoo Island was one of the (frankly very few) highlights of the 2014 edition of the Sydney Biennale.


One of the best things we saw in Sydney was a one-room show dedicated to 'Tehching Hsieh: One-year performance 1980–1981' at Carriageworks.

 Entrance to the artist-run space Alaska Projects, whose creative base camp is level 2 of Kings Cross Car Park.

1 June 2014: Short trip to Hobart in Tasmania to pay a visit to professional gambler and philanthropist David Walsh's extravaganza, the Museum of Old and New Art (MoNA). Despite the tech-geek owner and the 'O' device (iPod devices which function as extended audio guides, digital captions and location trackers), photography is not officially allowed inside the galleries, although you can, in fact, find plenty of shots on social media. Here instead are some views from the museum while waiting for the Bond-villain ferry to take us back to Hobart.



11–14 June 2014: Singapore Curating Lab 2014 begins! This 9-month programme began with a 3h morning lecture by Latitudes, followed by an afternoon workshop in which we asked participants to imagine an institution by defining a succinct "about us" paragraph for three imaginary institutions. Following the root of word "institution" (to establish, to set up), the task involved considering what practices were to be initiated, how programmes were to be established, and for what public. Read more here. Below the Tweets published, explaining each group's task.
 

14 June 2014: Symposium "When does an exhibition begin and end?", National Library of Singapore. With the participation of Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore), Charles Lim (artist); Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) and artist Shubigi Rao.


Curatorial Intensive participants live-tweeting, mapping concepts discussed during talks, photo-documenting and taking notes for future posts on Curating Lab blog. Photo: @nusmuseum.

Symposium moderators taking notes during the conference. Photo via @hemanchong

16–20 June 2014: Curating Lab 2004 Overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong, where participants were introduced to the programme and spaces of Spring Workshop, Asia Art Archive, Para/Site and M+. The many tweets published by ourselves and the participants are archived here.


Afternoon discussion at Spring Workshop.


Christodoulous Panayiotou and Philip Wiegard's exhibition at Spring Workshop. 


Curating Lab 2014 group photo in Hong Kong airport before boarding to Singapore.
 
31 July 2014: Master Class for the 2014 Open Set Summer School at Witte de With, Rotterdam. After a lecture on the tour as an artistic/curatorial format, participants work towards developing prototype guided tours for Rotterdam. More photos here.



Also great to finally be able to visit "The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else" exhibition curated by Heman Chong and Samuel Saelemakers at Witte de With, the epilogue to Moderation(s). Here interacting with Haegue Yang's 'Sonic Nickel Dance' (2013).

 Photo: @ymessen.

The night before the workshop, a great catch up a picnic with 'Portscapes' collaborators (Liesbeth Bik & Jos van der Pol, better known as Bik van der Pol, Lara Almarcegui, Nienke Terpsma and Rob Hamelijnck of Fucking Good Art and graphic designer Samira Ben Laloua). Ahhh, good memories!



During the past weeks we've been proofreading layouts with documentation of our 2013 residency and four "Incidents of Travel" tours we realised in Hong Kong, our contribution to the forthcoming publication "Terms & Conditions" published by Witte de With, Rotterdam as part of the Moderation(s) project steered by Heman Chong.

In the past months, Max Andrews has published the following texts in frieze magazine: Exhibition review of Pablo Helguera's ‘Librería Donceles’ (Donceles Bookshop, 2013) at Kent Fine Art, New York, issue 160, January–February 2014;
Review of Lucy Skaer's solo show at Glasgow's Tramway, issue 161, March 2014; Postcard "On a Shoestring. Institutions in Catalonia", issue 158, October 2013; and a Focus, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, Issue 157, September 2013. Max has also contributed to the publication that will accompany the forthcoming Frieze Art Fair, London (out in October 2014).



In January 2014, Mariana wrote a text on Time/Bank for the digital catalogue of the exhibition "7.000.000.000" curated by Arlandis/Marroquí for the Espai d'art Contemporani Castelló (EACC).

17 July 2014: Jointly published an art-agenda review on Andrea Buttner's "Tische" show at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona. 

View of Andrea Büttner, Tische, NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, 2014. Courtesy of NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona. All photos by Roberto Ruiz.

One of the most widely-read blog posts of the year has been the analysis of the 2013 report that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports dedicated to the state of culture in Spain (La cultura en España (2a parte): estadísticas, cifras y porcentajes del 2013, a follow up to the 2012 analysis), quite symptomatic of what has been another difficult year for the cultural sector.

Related posts:

Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2008-9, 30 July 2009
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2011–2012, 31 July 2012
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season, 31 July 2013



This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos:
Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Workshop for Curating Lab 2014: Imagining an institution

After a morning lecture introducing a range of our projects to the 11 participants of Curating Lab 2014, we proposed a challenging exercise: to define a succinct "about us" paragraph for three imaginary institutions. (Named after the first three Pacific hurricanes of the 2014 season, no less.) Following the root of word "institution" (to establish, to set up), the task was not an architectural challenge nor a branding exercise, but one that first asked what practices are imagined to be initiated, how programmes are established and for whom are they set up.

Participants took into account the parameters we described for each of three art-institution typologies – a residency/studio programme; an annual festival and a commissioning body. After a one-hour brainstorm within each group, participants came up with a paragraph that concisely communicated the "vision and values" of the new entities, responding to "what we do, how do we do it and why we do it that way".

The task wasn't oriented towards building a "business plan", though an integral part involved consideration of funding models, and who or what has a stake in the imagined organisation – city/state, philanthropists/donors, users/members/tickets, prizes/open calls, etc. We didn't expect job descriptions, but participants were encouraged to consider what kind of roles the staff within the imaginary institution might take up – would it have a core full-time team or occasional collaborators? What skills or roles would be taken up across curating, producing, publishing, researching, hosting, leadership, and so on?

The exercise was not to come up with a pitch to potential supporters (i.e. in future tense), but to exercise imagination in the present and to define what an organisation stands for and actually does in a succinct way. The aim was to think holistically about their "pet" organisation, its different programme strands and its relation to its local/international network.

1. CRISTINA – A residency/studio programme


"Cristina provides residential, and studio facilities for national and international artists. It is based in several live/work spaces and as yet undefined rooms in a former school building in a small town on a remote island in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is a day's travel to the nearest city. The local community of 800 people are mostly involved in fishing and farming."


2. AMANDA – An annual festival


"Amanda is an event-based format and is based in a major densely-populated prosperous city with a strong corporate and media culture as well as several world-renowned museums,  contemporary art centres and universities. The events take place in a specific block of time and involve organised, extended presentations and places for viewing them."

3. BORIS A commissioning body


"Boris invites artists to make temporary artworks in public spaces and locations that are not galleries or museums. It is based in a provincial port city that used to have a thriving economy based on heavy industry. The city is suffering from high unemployment, there are many abandoned buildings and wastelands."
 


This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos:
Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Report of the symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?", National Library of Singapore, 14 May 2014

 During the presentation of Shabbir Hussain Mustafa and Charles Lim. Photo: Latitudes.

The public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" (14 May 2014) was part of this year Curating Lab 2014 programme organised by NUS Museum. The event, convened and moderated by Heman Chong and Latitudes, counted with the participation of Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore), Charles Lim (artist); Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) and artist Shubigi Rao.

Addressing the format of the exhibition in terms of duration and process, the public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" consisted of two complimentary sessions that reflected on exhibitions' capacity to articulate its own making and incorporate its own history. In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the symposium will further ponder on how the exhibition and today's art institutions are undergoing similar transformations. Should exhibitions embrace or resist becoming more like broadcasting or live-publishing? "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" considered how exhibitions produce knowledge through the format of conversations between curators and artists. 


The first panel with Shabbir Hussain Mustafa and Charles Lim. Photo: Luca E.C.

Charles Lim and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa during the Q&A. Photo: Luca E.C.


 Audience. Photo: Luca E.C.

 Vera Mey, Anca Rajoiu and Shubigi Rao during the Q&A. Photo: Luca E.C.

The event was an occasion to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice, and counted with the engagement of Curatorial-Intensive participants who live-tweeted proceedings, a second group mapped concepts of the discussions (see photos below), and a final group will soon publish a blog post documenting and reporting the day for those not physically present.

 Curatorial Intensive participants live-tweeting the proceedings. Photo: Luca E.C.

Group working on the mapping of concepts throughout the symposium. Photo: Luca E.C.

 Map 1 by Curatorial Intensive participants. Photo: Latitudes.

Map 2 by Curatorial Intensive participants. Photo: Latitudes.

Related links:



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Storify of Curating Lab 2014 Overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong, 16–20 June 2014







This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Public Symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" on 14 June 2014 at the National Library, Singapore



"When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?"
A public symposium part of Curating Lab 2014
Saturday 14 June 2014
3–5pm 
Level 5 - Possibility, National Library Building, Singapore 
Free admission with registration, please write to [email protected]

Addressing the format of the exhibition in terms of duration and process, the public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" on June 14th, will consist of two complimentary sessions with the participation of curators and artists who will reflect on exhibitions' capacity to articulate its own making and incorporate its own history. In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the symposium will further ponder on how the exhibition and today's art institutions are undergoing similar transformations.

Is an ongoing production of discourse and research accountability increasingly expected of curators? Are artists engaging differently with new channels for the documentation and distribution of their work and what contextualises it? Should exhibitions embrace or resist becoming more like broadcasting or live-publishing? "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" will consider how exhibitions produce knowledge through the format of conversations between curators and artists.


In the first session Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore) and artist Charles Lim will talk about their ongoing professional collaboration including Lim's long-term SEA STATE project and the related solo exhibition In Search of Raffles’ Light (NUS Museum, 24 October 2013–27 April 2014). Mustafa and Lim will address these projects' engagement with the maritime history of Singapore in its intersection with the present while speculating about their approach to future exhibitions, including their forthcoming collaboration for the Singapore Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

In the second session Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators,
CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) will discuss their recent project "The Disappearance" (CCA, 5–6 April 2013), which took place during the dismantling of a previous exhibition "as a durational event unfolding over two days including a continuous series of manifestations". Rujoiu and May will be joined by participating artist Shubigi Rao to discuss her project "Visual snow" (2014), presented during "The Disappearance" as an ongoing part of her biographical study of "the reclusive S. Raoul".

Within the context of Curating Lab 2014, "When Does An Exhibition Begin and End?" will be treated as an occasion to reflect on the role of a symposium and its public within curatorial practice. It will count on the engagement of Curatorial-Intensive participants who will be live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising an approach to documenting and reporting the day for those not physically present.

The symposium is convened and moderated by artist, curator and writer Heman Chong and Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna).

Organised by: NUS Museum
Institutional Partner: Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore
Supported by: National Arts Council
Venue Sponsor: National Library Board, Singapore
 



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Lead Facilitators, Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive, National University of Singapore (11–14 June), symposium (14 June, 15–17h) and field trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June)

Curating Lab 2012. Courtesy: NUS Museum.

Alongside artist, curator and writer Heman Chong, Latitudes will lead the first phase of Curating Lab 2014 (11–14 June), a curatorial intensive in which 15 participants engage with the practice of exhibition-making through lectures and tutorials concluding with a field trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June).

Curating Lab 2014 is an eight month-long programme offering final year students, recent graduates and young curators exposure into contemporary curatorial perspectives and practices. Organised by NUS Museum with support from Singapore's National Arts Council, participants are firstly involved in a week-long curatorial intensive completed with an overseas field trip to Hong Kong. This first phase is followed by internship assignments to contemporary art spaces in the city (July–December 2014), and concludes with a final exhibition project in January 2015.


Courtesy: NUS Museum.

Curating Lab 2014 will focus on contemporary art and curatorial practices that engage with the exhibition as a site of knowledge production; one that is multifarious, relational and participatory providing scopes for intents and slippages, opened to interpretative articulations and re-articulations, subjected to varying contexts of exhibition-making and the very audiences that perform and shapes its production. Lectures and workshops will be led by Heman Chong and Latitudes to explore concepts of knowledge production in the realms of art, fiction, journalism, theory and other possibilities. 

As part of Curating Lab 2014's curatorial-intensive, the public symposium "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" on 14 June (3–5pm, Level 5 of the National Library Building), will bring together Singapore-based artists and curators Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore), artist Charles Lim; Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) and artist Shubigi Rao, to discuss their recent and ongoing projects. Addressing the format of the exhibition in terms of duration and process, the symposium will consist of two complimentary sessions that will reflect on the exhibition's capacity to articulate its own making and incorporate its own history. In the same way that the Internet has untethered television from fixed schedules and newspapers from print deadlines, the symposium will further ponder on how the exhibition and today's art institutions are undergoing similar transformations.

"When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" will count on the engagement of Curating Lab 2014 participants who will be live-tweeting proceedings, mapping concepts of the discussions, and devising an approach to documenting and reporting the day for those not physically present.

The symposium is convened and moderated by Heman Chong and Latitudes.

The Asia Art Archive (AAA) library. Courtesy: Asia Art Archive.








Following on the Curatorial-Intensive, the overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June) aims to expose participants to international curatorial practices and situate their curatorial processes within the region. Participants will be visiting a range of private and public spaces such as Spring Workshop, Asia Art Archive, Para/Site and M+ Museum.

Follow:
#CuratingLab2014



This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos:
Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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"Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong", Singapore-based artist, curator and writer. Eighth in the #OpenCurating research series

 Cover of the interview. Photo: Joan Kee.


Interview available for download as a pdf or readable on ISSUU via Latitudes' web.

Heman Chong’s art practice is comprised of “an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future”. His ongoing project, The Lonely Ones, looks at the representation of solitude and the “last man on earth” genre in art, film and literature, and is the basis for a forthcoming novel entitled Prospectus. Chong’s recent solo exhibitions include LEM 1, Rossi & Rossi, London (2012), Calendars (2020–2096), NUSMuseum, Singapore (2011) and The Sole Proprietor and other Stories, Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou (2007). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Asia Pacific Triennale 7 (2012), Performa 11 (2011), Momentum 6 (2011), Manifesta 8 (2010), Busan Biennale (2004), and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) representing Singapore. Amonograph of his work entitled "The Part In The Story Where We Lost Count Of The Days", edited by Pauline J. Yao, will be published in June 2013 by ArtAsiaPacific

The interview was initiated at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, in the context of Chong’s invitation to Latitudes to make a curatorial residency as part of Moderation(s), a year-long series of programming between Spring and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. "Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong" also includes a guest spot with Gotherburg-based artist and writer Anthony Marcellini.

Follow:
@LTTDS 
#OpenCurating 
@HemanChong
#Moderations

ABOUT #OPENCURATING

Drawing on the emerging practices of so-called 'Open Journalism' – which seek to better collaborate with and use the ability of anyone to publish and share#OpenCurating is a research project that investigates how contemporary art projects may function beyond the traditional format of exhibition-and-catalogue. #OpenCurating is concerned with new forms of interaction between publics – whether online followers or physical visitors – with artworks and their production, display and discursive context.

The project is articulated around a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, writers and online strategists published as a free digital edition [read here the published ones so far], a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating and an public conversation with Dia Art Foundation curator which took place at MACBA on the 19 February.

#OpenCurating is a research project by Latitudes produced through La Capella. BCN Producció 2012 of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona. 










Content partners: Walker Art Center

 



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