EventOctober 24, 2023, 6–8pm
Curators at Work: Curating Beyond Institutional Walls
For this Curators at Work ISCP curators-in-residence Ida Schyum and Håkon Lillegraven will be joined by Alison Burstein, Curator, The Kitchen, New York; Prerana Reddy, Arts & Community Fellow, Recess Art, New York; and Ian Wallace, Curatorial Assistant, New Museum, New York. They will discuss the potential of curating and programming beyond institutional walls and dedicated exhibition spaces, exchanging perspectives on how curating beyond institutional boundaries engages new audiences and encourages a more varied art environment. They will address how these practices lead to important ethical considerations about where, for whom, and how art institutions should operate today.
Operating as a curator at the nomadic Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, Ida Schyum will present the museum’s considerations behind moving out of its traditional building in order to engage new audience groups and care for art practices situated beyond the white cube. Håkon Lillegraven will speak about his experience as a curator of interdisciplinary public programs as both an independent curator and for institutions, public space, and nomadic and digital platforms. Alison Burstein and Ian Wallace will talk about the challenges and promises of working outside their institutional facilities, while Prerana Reddy will discuss alternative forms of public engagement in nontraditional viewing conditions.
Ida Schyum is a Danish curator specialized in curating exhibitions that reflect on and challenge our current moment while engaging new audiences. Schyum is currently a curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, a nomadic museum with no fixed institutional building which displays exhibitions and their collection of hybrid and ephemeral art forms beyond the classical exhibition space. Schyum has curated exhibitions as curator at the Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art as well as independently at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, ARoS, and the Alt_Cph20 Biennial – all in Denmark. She has also curated outreach programs for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the Nivaagaard Painting Collection, both in Denmark.
Håkon Lillegraven is a curator, art mediator, and writer based in Oslo. He is currently Curator and Head of Mediation and Communication at Fotogalleriet, the first institution dedicated to photography as a critical artistic practice in the Nordic region. His curatorial interests are in the intersections of queer, temporal, performance-based, and moving image-based work, collaboration, community-building, and the curatorial strategies and ethics surrounding these. He is also a founding member of two nomadic curatorial initiatives focused on queer, feminist and communal practices, Ergi and Geiten. Formerly, he has held positions as co-curator of the exhibition and public programme PARADE for the Vigeland Museum,Oslo, and Curatorial Assistant of the first Oslo Biennial. In 2021 he was a participant in the course Curatorial practice+public space, organized by KORO – Public Art Norway, and has previously been the recipient of professional development support from Art Fund UK and Whitechapel Gallery, British Council, and Institute of Contemporary Arts,London.
Alison Burstein is a Curator at The Kitchen in New York, where she organizes exhibitions, artist residencies, archival research initiatives, and digital programming and publications. She previously served as Program Director at the nonprofit art space Recess and as a member of the education departments at MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum, all in New York. She has organized programs and exhibitions for institutions including Tenthaus, Oslo; The Luminary, St. Louis; Knockdown Center, New York; Mana Contemporary, New Jersey; Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles; and NURTUREart, New York. Her writing has appeared in artist monographs and in publications including Tate Etc.
Ian Wallace is an art historian, curator, and writer based in New York. He received his PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2021. His writing has appeared in BOMB, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, whitehot magazine, and artforum, among others. He has contributed to exhibitions at the Fondazione Prada, Venice; MoMA, New York; the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles; and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, among other institutions. He was Assistant to the Curator of the 59th Venice Biennale and is currently Curatorial Assistant at the New Museum.
Prerana Reddy is Artist & Community Fellow at Recess, an abolitionist arts organization in Brooklyn NY, overseeing Session, their artists project space, and their Critical Writing Program. She did consulting work with Amy Kaufman Cultural Planning, and was a Think Tank Member at both Creative Time and the Creatives Rebuild New York initiative. Previously, she was Director of Programs at A Blade of Grass, New York; and Director of Public Events at the Queens Museum of Art, New York. Reddy co-curated Fatal Love: South Asian American Art Now, and commissioned two editions of Corona Plaza: Center of Everywhere, Queens Museum’s socially-interactive public art projects. She is currently on the board of Alwan for the Arts, an Arab and Middle Eastern cultural organization based in lower Manhattan.
This program is supported, in part, by Danish Arts Foundation; OCA – Office for Contemporary Art Norway; The Consulate General of Denmark in New York & The Danish Ministry for Culture; Royal Norwegian Consulate General; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; James Rosenquist Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.
Participating Residents
running from October 3-17
