Event | Exploring exhibition-making as a research practice

Exhibition Research Lab
Online / Liverpool School of Art and Design, 2 Duckinfield Street, Liverpool L3 5RD
Tuesday 12 November, 14:00–17:00 GMT

The research, exhibitions, programme and teaching outputs at the Exhibition Research Lab are predicated on the proposal that curatorial practice is a form of critical inquiry and knowledge production. This work extends the traditional remit of an art gallery as a site for display or pedagogical resource to an expanded concept of a ‘lab’ where experimental thinking and making takes place, and where curatorial knowledge is enacted, produced and made public.

In this workshop, the invited speakers will share insights into their curatorial practices, exploring the role of research throughout the process and outcomes of exhibition-making and staging.

For many of our colleagues from other disciplines and institutions, this workshop may be an opportunity to gain guidance into how they might frame their own exhibition-making or cultural partnerships in terms of research. For students, this is an opportunity to learn directly from the experiences of successful practitioners in this field and participate in debate around the meaning and application of research-based exhibitions.

Programme

Speaker biographies and abstracts

Jenny Brownrigg is a curator and writer. She is Exhibitions Director and a researcher at The Glasgow School of Art. Her enduring research question is: ‘What new knowledge can curatorial methodology and exhibition-making as a research tool bring to understanding the overlooked practices of twentieth century women photographers in Scotland?’ In 2017 she curated Observing Women at Work, (in partnership with Napier University and St Andrews Special Collections), presenting a selection of photographs and material by social documentary photographer Franki Raffles [1955-94]. Brownrigg’s current research is a survey of early twentieth century women photographers and film-makers in Scotland, including the work of Helen Biggar, MEM Donaldson, Jenny Gilbertson, Ruby Grierson, Marion Grierson and Margaret Fay Shaw. A major exhibition output is Glean: early twentieth century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland, first floor exhibition at City Art Centre, Edinburgh (12 November 2022-12 March 2023). This survey exhibition draws from 17 archives, mostly across Scotland, and features the work of 14 women photographers and filmmakers.

Adi Lerer is a practice-based PhD researcher at Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London. Her thesis focuses on the role of public funded art institutions in the UK through the lens of the ‘civic’. Her research is informed by her curatorial practice on the Home from Home programme at Tate Liverpool for people seeking asylum and those with refugee status, since 2019. Adi holds an MA in Exhibition Studies from Liverpool John Moores University, where her research focused on socially engaged art practice and its relationship to art institutions. During her MA studies she wrote on the phenomena of international art biennials and the tension between global and local, looking at the Liverpool Biennial as a case study. In 2023 she contributed an article in Social Works? Journal with an essay titled ‘Paradoxes of EDI in UK publicly funded art institutions: Imagining pathways of reflexive social practice’. In the past she worked in arts coordination roles at National Gallery and British Council, and has a theatre performance background after graduating from Arts Educational School of Drama – London.

Presentation: Encounters of the civic in the museum

“This presentation focuses on the role of the museum as civic institution and as a site from which minor interventions test normative practices of curatorial practices. I understand the term ‘civic’ as reciprocal enactment of duties and obligations between citizens/inhabitants and institutions. But its function has a complex relationship with nation building which requires exclusions and memory erasure to create a homogeneous identity and connection to place. My research is informed by my practice; since 2019, I have been developing the art programme Home from Home at Tate Liverpool for those seeking asylum and refugee status. The ‘art’ in this context is used to encompass the many facets of creativity and daring to imagine openings for the singularity of oneself in common with others, and the role of the museum in this relationship. I ask how these activities influence means for survival, belonging and citizenship. I will share some of the curatorial practices of the programme, that test art narration that is at once singularly situated in embodied experiences and opens possibilities for encounters that allow relinquishing of power.”

– Adi Lerer

How to Attend

Join this workshop on Microsoft Teams here or using the information below:

Meeting ID: 346 955 798 204

Passcode: N2Ujbs

For more information, please contact Dr Hana Leaper on [email protected]