This research project will explore three different ideas:

1. How the curator can project their own ideas and concepts through the exhibition and use it as their own form of artwork (exhibition as artwork).

2. Removal of the exhibition hierarchy - how artists and curators can work together collaboratively to generate ideas and concepts for the exhibition and develop this into the curation of the exhibition, all working together on a level playing field and sharing skills to form the exhibition.

3. How the research and development of the exhibition can be included in the exhibition to show the process and progression of how it came to be, and how this can be intertwined with the artworks to work as one cohesive body of work, rather than separate components.

This research project has evolved from my need to understand more about the role of the curator within an exhibition, and how the curator can work in a similar manner of an artist as some kind of curator-artist hybrid, using the exhibition as their creative tool. I’m interested in looking at how curators can push their own ideas and interests through the exhibition, essentially using it to communicate in the same way as an individual artwork would, thus making the exhibition the medium of the curators artwork, instead of using the exhibition as a tool to display.

The collaborative nature of the research project and the idea of developing and generating exhibitions through conversations and discussions comes from my own personal interest in explicit content and background within the art system. So many amazing exhibitions and events happen that take months, even years, to facilitate and produce, but you only ever see the final product and never anything about what's happened behind the scenes to bring it into existence. I feel like if we could learn more about how and why the exhibition was created and are given an insight into the process of the exhibition and why specific decisions may have been made, it may help us to understand the whole final exhibition more, making the information more approachable and accessible, and I think that's the whole underlying aim of this research project.

CURATORIAL METHOD (PROVISIONAL)

1. Select artists & space to exhibit in

2. Personal research into backgrounds & themes of selected artists

3. Introduce artists to aims/guidelines of project

4. Period of research & discussion with the artists to start generating an overall theme/concept for the exhibition

5. Finalisation of curation, exhibition intentions, selection of work

6. Installation

7. Exhibition opens

8. De-installation

9. Period of reflection & evaluation with the artists to discuss how the exhibition went, figure out how this could help to improve this approach to exhibition making & curatorial research in the future.

The current position of this project is that I am mid-way through developing the first two exhibitions that will both happen after June 2022, and at the beginning stages of developing another, slightly last-minute, exhibition that will happen Mid-May 2022. After these 3 exhibitions have taken place, I will then be able to evaluate the approach to curating and methodology of this project, and decide from there how I can move forward with this research project.