This publication takes its impetus from the collaboration between three institutions: UCT (Michaelis Galleries, ICA) and Wits University (Wits School of Arts). The two symposia were hosted at Wits (March 2017) and as part if ICA’s Third Space Symposiums (May 2017).
Museums and art institutions around the world appear uniform in the formats and content which appears to follow Western models which has been the cause for the setting of an elite culture that functions prescriptively.
Through a series of symposiums engagements – we have posed a series of conceptual and practical questions that ask for a re-examination of functions, forms, curatorial concerns and art practices that challenge these prevailing conscripts.
How could art practitioners and their institutions work differently, by not aligning to a supposedly globally occurring \”lead\” culture and continue to look for new formats? What would de-colonial art institutions look like? And how might a curatorial approach responds to artists to who are committed to or exploring alternative forms of knowledge production through their practices. Do existing institutional frameworks have ways of accommodating artistic and epistemological challenges being posed through new forms of art practices?
The publication set out to re-imagine the dissemination of knowledge for the rapidly altering production of visualities. The contributions contained herein encourage plurality of practices, engagements and concerns across different disciplines, in various geo-political locations and through formalised institutions and alternative forms.
Contributors were encouraged to consider various forms, styles, and question how institutions have positioned art and art practices. Through the publication we sought to address how alternative spaces and alternative strategies have been used to challenge conventions that have become edified or canonized modes of programming, curating and displaying art works. The publication invites consideration, reflection and projection (for the future) as to how these alternatives are both executed or their potential reimagined.
