Curatorial Practice as Research

Curatorial Practice as Research >

Given the public nature of curatorial practice, and it being very much a practice of connecting things together - of making constellations that contradict the notion of truth as something 'finished' - how and where is this research recognised? 

The Curatorial Practice as Research group (CPaR) was created in 2016 by Jenny Brownrigg (Head of Exhibitions, GSA), Katrina Brown (GSA Curatorial Research Fellow and Director of The Common Guild), Mónica Laiseca (Senior Lecturer in Curatorial Practice – Contemporary Art, GSA) and Francis McKee (GSA Research Fellow and Director of CCA - Glasgow). The group, based in GSA’s School of Fine Art (SoFA), exists to provide a context for discussions around curatorial practice in contemporary art. The group meets 4 times per year and organises occasional events with invited speakers. 

The groups aims are to:

  • Provide a platform for the discussion of curatorial practice in contemporary art;
  • Stimulate critical thinking around curatorial practice;
  • Consider how practice-centred research is manifested in curatorial outputs, including but not limited to writing;
  • Identify concrete examples;
  • Analyse how knowledge is both developed and shared through curatorial research;
  • Establish a language and / or protocol for how quality in curatorial research is measured / valued;
  • Extend and share within GSA research environment;
  • Make research public through talks, visits, exhibition, seminars and other vehicles as appropriate;
  • Develop links and dialogue with other curatorial practitioners working in HE, both in the UK and internationally.  

Research areas include:

  • Public engagement
  • Relationship with place, site-specific curating
  • The solo project as curatorial modality
  • The persistence of objects
  • Artist residency and exhibition outputs
  • Contemporary curating in heritage venues
  • Gender and commissioning
  • Civicness
  • Institutional cultural policy