Reimagining Connections with Communities: Socially Engaged Curating & Teaching

We live with change–the pandemic, social unrest, discrimination, displaced populations, migration, and rapid global consumerism. In response, the landscape of art making and art historization in museums, organizations, and higher education have shifted. No longer are institutions assumed to be neutral. For curators, artists, and educators, we now are part of a seachange in how and what we do. Communities–in the most diverse, broad and deep understandings of the word–are at the core of what this shift means. Our communities (audiences and students) are asking to be included in our work. Some institutions have responded to the sociopolitical landscape with programming. And socially engaged practices and what has been called the educational turn in curating is now commonplace. Higher education has been transfigured. Calls for inclusion, equity and anti-racism initiatives are now an imperative and radical pedagogy is becoming more accepted. Social justice, equity and inclusion are part of our daily work. But have these approaches been embraced by institutions? How do we conduct this work? What strategies can we use to encourage a new way of working within institutions? This session calls for presentations by curators, artists, and educators on how care, anti-racism, social justice, compassion, and reciprocal relationships can be engendered and reimagined with audiences, communities and students. We hope to share ideas, projects, courses, and other examples. Papers based on case studies in the field of museums and higher education are encouraged, however, even conceptual, imagined proposals will be considered.