The Curatorial Connective (CX) was developed in response to the question:

How do we grow the critical middle between commerce and the academy?

Envisioned as a capacity and network-building programme for emerging curators on the continent, or for those working with a focus on the Global South, the first CX took place online.

Following an application inviting an ‘expanded definition of the curatorial’, twelve curators were chosen by an appointed selection committee to participate in a programme consisting of bi-weekly intensive online seminars. The CX sought to create opportunities for ‘access’, negotiated here as a significant obstacle to curatorial work in the region. Over thirty cultural practitioners working across the arts ecology shared their projects, processes and practices with the cohort through conversations and exchanges that took place over nine weeks.

Including ‘collection as practice’, the CX sought to build relationships between the participating curators and private collectors. The Scheryn Collection, Wendy Fisher, Pulane Kingston, Emile Stipp and Mfundi Vundla, each offered their support to the initiative. Engaging with the curators in online exchanges, the participating collectors selected works from within their private collections to share to an online Portal created for the programme. As a resource hub, the Portal became a central node within the CX; part library, part interactive environment where artworks that do not necessarily enjoy the opportunity to be researched and engaged with as those held in public collections might, could be shared and shown, albeit digitally.

The twelve curators were asked to enter the programme with a research question that could be developed throughout the programme. Iterations and wholesale shifts in research focus occurred throughout the process, with a research project shared at an online Symposium held to celebrate the close of the CX. Works from the Portal were shared and shown alongside works from the curators’ own regions, spaces, and places of interest, invigorating the works of South African artists through new and unexpected pairings and combinations. 

Ambient online ‘Kitchen’ sessions stood in for the more incidental, unscheduled encounters (passing a colleague in a shared studio on the way to make a cup of tea) that can be missed in the online environment.

The CX facilitated interactions with curators, artists, collectors, and arts workers to establish sites of intersection, build relationships, and create networks of exchange en route to exhibition making. 

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CX key aims:

Provide emerging curators with access, information, and the opportunity to form partnerships within the arts ecology of South Africa.
In turn, collectors/ art patrons have the occasion to discuss works held within collections and explore their individual collecting methodology and practice. 
Facilitate conversation and knowledge exchange about artworks held in personal custodianship to enable curators and collectors to share these works with publics.
Establish an alumni network of curators from the African continent and beyond. Through this, we hope to create dialogue and connections between South African-based curators, curators on the continent and international curators.

A list of recommended readings for each session is included in the session descriptions below.