december     folly     archive     research     projects     1911

research





folly (2024)

references


 🔗 quotes  

🔗 words   
🔗 concepts
reference slides


folly (2023)









research foci 
Ongoing curatorial research carried out in part with bursary support from the British Art Network’s Emerging Curator’s Group 2023

Fragmented to collections; pavilion/ folly, archive, curation and 1911

pavilion / folly

pavilion / folly is a study of the architectural and psychological  influences at play within spaces, though the lens of architectural phenomenology, inpermanent spaces within the wider exhibitionary complex (pavilion structures within a wider arts scene, Biennale culture).


‘It is becoming increasingly difficult to find meaning and value in our culture, particularly in architecture. Things ephemeral, fragmented, to do with events and spectacles, seem more authentic than those which try to establish some artificial grounding’

Osaka Follies, Diana Periton

archive

An ongoing consideration within the research has been the place for dated information, archival material and study of the past to better inform or contextualise the present, within contemporary art curation. With personal interest in events such as the 1911 Scottish National Exhibition and curatorial relationships with archive sites including the Glasgow Art Club, there is a conflict between thoughts of contemporary practice and otherwise sentimental preoccupation with the past.

‘Enwezor, for instance, described the archive as the place ‘where a suture between the past and present is performed, in the indeterminate zone between event and image, document and monument’’

 Sara Callahan, Art + Archive (of Okwui Enwezor, Archive Fever


curation

Study of contemporary and past curatorial practice has been an anchor for the research. Working in a freelance context, finding examples with which to study curation in a practical sense has been paramount- methods including Dr Megan Johnston’s concept of ‘Slow Curation’.

‘Exhibitions perform in the ‘present time’, meanwhile the institution is a heritage machine - bearing and asking questions around unresolved, ignored, absented and obscured stories from the past, and also negotiating, fermenting, testing out, in the best case, possible futures’

Terry Smith, Curating the Complex & the Open Strike


1911

The 1911 Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry. 

‘All these dumb witnesses of the past could be interpreted as impressive decorations on Scotland’s breast, helping the others to shape their ideas of what this young and old nation was’

Effie Rembold, Negotiating the Scottish Identity: The Glasgow History Exhibition