Pan-Pan
25D Floodgate St, Birmingham, B5 5SL
20 April 2024
Convened by Marta Marsicka & Jazz Swali
Organised by Jazz Swali and Marta Marsicka, this report is authored by minority curators for minority curators. It serves as a call to action, advocating for our futures and occupying space in the curatorial landscape.
The Future of Curatorship explores the realities, aspirations, challenges, and often overlooked voices of minority curators navigating the field in Britain. This collaborative report emerges from online and in-person sessions where curators from diverse backgrounds offered their time, expertise and care to share their voices whilst exploring strategies for fostering peer support.
British GLAMS (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) are powerful and influential tools of imperialism and colonialism that uphold patriarchalism, masculinism, xenophobia, homo- and transphobia and ableism. In the last years, they have been compelled to recognise the need for inclusive representation within the sector and to challenge these enduring legacies. This recognition has manifested in the rapid implementation of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategies aimed at addressing societal inequalities. However, our experiences as minority curators working in the sector suggest that these EDI strategies fall short of fostering authentic change.
Recognising the value of lived experiences is critical to informing meaningful research on the challenges faced by minority curators within the field. There is a significant lack of research on the barriers minority curators encounter in curatorial and The Future of Curatorship provides contexts that aim to fill this gap. The report delves into recurring themes faced by minority curators, including working-classness, minority ethnicity, migration experience, gender, queerness, disability, fair pay, salary negotiations, career development, social mobility, and tokenism. The report identifies the obstacles that prevent minority curators from building a sustainable future and the roles played by institutions and freelancers in mitigating or perpetuating these challenges. Lastly, it questions the efficacy of EDI policies as the sole means of achieving equity and inclusivity.
