Every year MA Curating Contemporary Art graduating students work in partnership with leading UK based art organisations to curate final exhibitions. With the start of the pandemic in March the curatorial context was fully tested and expanded as the projects moved online with the support of their partners Furtherfield, Gasworks, Nottingham Contemporary, Open School East and Team London Bridge. Working with over 27 artists to develop commissions, performances, writings, and project documentation was both daunting and galvanising. With a shared recognition of the challenge and opportunity to learn and shape this new present together, students, partners, and artists thoughtfully and energetically worked together to produce these five online projects.
Empathy Loading
Empathy Loading is an online project exploring empathetic relationships between humans and networked non-humans.
Curated by Maria Cynkier, Jiayi Du, Sakhi Gokhale, Eve Miller, Vanessa Wang, Haseeb Ullah Zafar and Huanzhi Zhang
So Remember the Liquid Ground
https://remembertheliquidground.rca.ac.uk/
So remember the liquid ground is a programme of meditative and sensorial experiences crossing over the digital, physical and spiritual realms.
Curated by Benjamin Darby, Yoojin Kang, Akis Kokkinos, Ang Li, Lenette Lua and Louise Nason.
Sets and Scenarios
https://setsandscenarios.co.uk/
Sets and Scenarios is an online programme of film, text and performance exploring our heightened proximity to moving images and what it means to live under their influence.
Curated by Jade Barget, Angela Blanc, Charlotte dos Santos, Panos Fourtoulakis, Sha Li, Yi-Ning Lin and Lindsey Wiercioch.
Nothing Gentle Will Remain
https://nothinggentlewillremain.rca.ac.uk/
Nothing gentle will remain is a publication inviting artists and audiences to speculate on how we gather together, now and in the future.
Curated by Lydia Antoniou, Caterina Guadagno, Nora Kovacs, Titus Nouwens and William Rees.
Quincunx
Quincunx is a collaboration between the artist Rachel Pimm and four other practitioners and collectively presents an exploration of medicinal plants, sounds and breathing.
Curated by Junyao Chen, Jinghua Fan, Hetian Guo, Chao Liu, Si Shen, Costanza Simonini, Irina Sinenkaya and Jianan Wang.
Main Image: Zoë Marden, Mermaids, Tentacles and Other Stories, 2020, video, exhibited as part of So Remember The Liquid Sky